| Popis: |
Curved focal plane arrays (FPAs) coupled with ball lenses can reduce spherical aberration, increase the field of view (FOV), and reduce the weight and cost of optical systems. These improvements over flat FPAs promise major upgrades for military systems. The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) has been investigating the potential applications of curved FPAs that are being developed in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Hemispherical Array Detector for Imaging (HARDI) program. Several applications have been identified, but the initial focus has involved cameras mounted on small robots used for mine detection and neutralization. These cameras can be improved by the application of curved FPAs. IDA developed a ray tracing code to analyze improvement in camera resolution and conducted tradeoff studies to obtain optimum conditions for various robot camera applications. |
