SK Infrared LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: SB152-006

Description

With this project, Skinfrared LLC in conjunction with Duke University, aims to develop a reconfigurable hyperspectral imaging system. Hyperspectral imaging systems (HSI) are important for determining the chemical composition of heterogeneous substances of a given scene. They have many applications in both military and civilian ranging from gas and terrain identification to food inspection. Current systems tend to be slow, large, expensive and difficult to configure for different applications. Our proposal is to utilize the tunable properties of metamaterials in conjunction with a sparse detector array and a compressive sensing algorithm to overcome these limitations. Phase I of the proposed effort will consist of making a detailed design of the proposed system. This will consist of an assessment of current HSI systems, an design the complete system, an evaluation of tradeoffs of the system components and performances, developing a risk reduction plan, and creating physical mockup of the proposed system. The subcontractor, Duke University, will design and model the tunable spatial light modulator. For the Phase I option, test elements of the SLM will be fabricated and tested.