We present image data and discuss naval sensing applications of SWIR and Hyperspectral SWIR imaging in littoral and marine environments under various light conditions. These environments prove to be challenging for persistent surveillance applications as light levels may vary over several orders of magnitude within and from scene to scene. Additional difficulties include imaging over long water paths where marine haze and turbulence tend to degrade radiation transmission, and discrimination of low contrast objects under low-light and night imaging. Image data obtained from two separate passive sensor systems, both of which are built around an RVS large format (1280 x 1024) InGaAs FPA with high dynamic range and low noise electronics, are presented. The SWIR camera imager is equipped with a custom 300 mm focal length f/2 narrow field-of-view (6° diagonal) refractive telescope. The Hyperspectral imager has a custom selectable 900/1800 mm focal length telescope with corresponding 1.55°/0.79° field-of-view and fnumbers of 3/6 respectively. The sensor uses 1280 pixels in the spatial direction and a window of 192 are used for the spectral and operates at a nominal frame rate of 120 Hz. To assess field performance of the SWIR/Hyperspectral imagers, comparison is made to output from a scientific grade VNIR camera and two state-of-the-art low-light sensors.

Date Published: 3 May 2010
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 7660, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXVI, 766008 (3 May 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.850262

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7660:
Infrared Technology and Applications XXXVI
Bjørn F. Andresen; Gabor F. Fulop; Paul R. Norton, Editor(s)