Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: To address the Army"s need for an innovative wide field-of-view imaging system with o

Description

To address the Army"s need for an innovative wide field-of-view imaging system with optoelectronic active mitigation of atmospheric turbulence effects for tactical scenarios, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Light Field Digital Aberration Corrector (LIFDAC). This proposed system is based on a wavefront sensor, digital image restoration algorithm, and integral parts of the sensor/imaging system. LIFDAC uses an innovative light-field approach and optimized unsymmetrical multifrontal sparse matrix inversion algorithm to solve sparse linear systems with a flexible, scalable graphic processing unit (GPU). The high-performance GPU offers a flexible programming interface for its powerful floating point hardware. LIFDAC eliminates active optics, reduces the imaging system"s total weight, and shows 10x improvement in image restoration speed. In Phase I, POC will demonstrate feasibility of the LIFDAC concept design and detailed algorithms for image processing and evaluate its effectiveness under representative field-of-view and atmospheric turbulence conditions. The optimized performance design will be prepared for optomechanical implementation in Phase II. In Phase II, POC plans to focus on optics and electronics integration, develop a prototype with identifiable improvements in image quality, demonstrate this prototype system for its turbulence-mitigation effects, and optimize the system through algorithm refinement and electronic processing improvements.