<title>System design and operation of a radiometric lens/camera system</title>

Abstract

Diversified Optical Products has designed an integrated lens, blackbody reference sources, and source control electronics for a mid-range IR Radiometric lens/staring focal plane array system. The purpose of the system is to be able to accurately correlate objects within the field of view of the system to two known, calibrated, and controllable blackbody sources also within the field of view. The two internal blackbody sources are thermoelectric cooler based, and their output is optically relayed to an internal image plane of the lens. The optical system also incorporates a neutral density filter wheel which attenuates the scene radiance so that both the blackbodies and the scene radiance can be brought into the dynamic range of the focal plane array. The goal of the design effort was to manufacture a highly accurate, field portable radiometric instrument. The specific design areas which where focused upon were: matching the optical design of the lens system with the camera design; controlling the radiometric properties of the optics, optical design requirements for the projection of the blackbody sources within the system field of view; and calibration requirements and methods for the total radiometric system.