This paper presents the optical layout that is used to stimulate air-to-ground and ground-to-ground IR seekers featuring: (1) a silicon graphics calculator based IR scene generator; (2) a high flux visible projector; (3) a cooled infrared transducer including a large dimension cell (for high-resolution IR images). Vacuum is realized around the cell in order to optimize its transduction parameters (dynamics, rise time, MTF) from the visible to the IR. The transducer is embedded into an enclosure in which a cooled fluid circulates. The paper describes the development steps of the enclosure and especially the integration of cooled windows in it; and (4) the non-uniformity correction system, which is an electronic device designed around an EEPROM storing video scene parameters (pixel by pixel correction). In addition, the stress is put on a method for correction coefficients generating using IR imagers and image processing. As a conclusion, possible next developments are discussed and some comparison to other IR scene projection systems (cost, performances).

Date Published: 19 July 1999
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 3697, Technologies for Synthetic Environments: Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing IV, (19 July 1999); doi: 10.1117/12.352897

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3697:
Technologies for Synthetic Environments: Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing IV
Robert Lee Murrer Jr., Editor(s)