A Demonstration of On-Chip Self-Registered Image Fusion Using a Voltage-Tunable Mid-Wave and Long-Wave Infrared Dual-Band Focal Plane Array

Abstract

In this paper, we obtain mid-wave infrared (MWIR), long-wave infrared (LWIR), and MWIR/LWIR dual-band images from a voltage tunable quantum dot focal plane array. The MWIR/LWIR dual-band image system allows collection of information from both bands and thus enables on-chip image fusion at the sensor with self-registered images of both bands. We compare the on-chip dual-band image with the off-chip-fused image of the MWIR and LWIR bands using standard image fusion methods. The on-chip image fusion shows much clearer features due to the self-registration in the dual-band image collection. The mutual information ( $Q_{\mathrm {MI}})$ of the on-chip image fusion is also higher than that of the off-chip fused image. We also perform image segmentation for both the on-chip image fusion and the off-chip-fused image. The on-chip image fusion shows better background removal effect. Since no high-speed off-chip communication with an image fusion algorithm is needed, the on-chip self-registered image fusion is suitable for real-time sensing and image analysis.