SBIR-STTR Award

The primary goal of this Phase I effort is to investigate, develop, and characterize a new class of high performance, large spatial coverage (high definition), compact LWIR hyperspectral imaging sensors enabled by a high throughput refractive relay design form.The optical properties of these systems, including light gathering capability, spatial resolution, optical distortion, as well as other system parameters will be modeled and characterized, and estimates of performance metrics such as NESR will be predicted, and tradeoffs between data collection rates and performance will be evaluated.

The primary goal of this Phase II effort is to design, fabricate, and evaluate a compact, lightweight, demonstration LWIR hyperspectral imaging sensors enabled by an innovative design form and dispersing element technology that is suitable for use on uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs). An alignment and test procedure will be developed for the assembly and integration of the spectrometer and imaging fore-optics sub-system components of the demonstration sensor and an operational testbed assembly complete with GUI software applications will be designed and fabricated to facilitate the collection of spectral image data. The optical properties of the demonstration system, including radiometric performance, spatial and spectral MTF, smile and keystone distortion, and other system parameters will be measured and evaluated.