Imaging and radiometric performance simulation for a new high-performance dual-band airborne reconnaissance camera

Abstract

In recent years, high performance visible and IR cameras have been used widely for tactical airborne reconnaissance. The process improvement for efficient discrimination and analysis of complex target information from active battlefields requires for simultaneous multi-band measurement from airborne platforms at various altitudes. We report a new dual band airborne camera designed for simultaneous registration of both visible and IR imagery from mid-altitude ranges. The camera design uses a common front end optical telescope of around 0.3m in entrance aperture and several relay optical sub-systems capable of delivering both high spatial resolution visible and IR images to the detectors. The camera design is benefited from the use of several optical channels packaged in a compact space and the associated freedom to choose between wide (~3 degrees) and narrow (~1 degree) field of view. In order to investigate both imaging and radiometric performances of the camera, we generated an array of target scenes with optical properties such as reflection, refraction, scattering, transmission and emission. We then combined the target scenes and the camera optical system into the integrated ray tracing simulation environment utilizing Monte Carlo computation technique. Taking realistic atmospheric radiative transfer characteristics into account, both imaging and radiometric performances were then investigated. The simulation results demonstrate successfully that the camera design satisfies NIIRS 7 detection criterion. The camera concept, details of performance simulation computation, the resulting performances are discussed together with future development plan.