26 April 2011

Sofradir and Onera unveil IR detector with integrated Fisheye optics

In booth 503 at this week’s SPIE 2011 Defense, Security & Sensing Exhibition in Orlando, FL, USA (26–28 April), Sofradir of Châtenay-Malabry, which manufactures cooled infrared (IR) detectors based on mercury cadmium telluride (MCT/HgCdTe) for military, space and industrial applications, and French government aerospace & defense research laboratory Onera of Palaiseau (both near Paris, France) are demonstrating a new IR detector with integrated Fisheye optics.

The new Fisheye IR detector is the result of a joint development project between Sofradir and Onera (with support from the French Defense procurement agency DGA) which began 24 months ago. At the 2010 SPIE exhibition, the partners demonstrated a prototype 640 x 512 15-micron pixel pitch VGA-format IR chip with integrated optics.

Now with built-in 360º imaging, the new detector can help producers of missile warning systems to reduce the size of the associated optical sensors and to make them more robust. Previously, systems could only offer 360º imaging by using separate optical components.

Used on selected aircraft to notify the pilot of threats and to trigger the aircraft's countermeasures systems, missile warning systems consist of a number of optical sensor converters, a computer processor and a control indicator. Each optical converter houses an infrared camera.

By directly integrating 360º imaging lenses into the IR detector, the number of optical components is reduced and hence the camera’s optical transmission is increased, improving sensitivity (a key feature in the performance of IR cameras). Also, embedding the imaging lens into the cooling chamber minimizes stray light, making the thermal response and background current more stable and hence reducing the need to correct non-uniformity (a weakness that occurs in standard IR cameras). By integrating 360º optics, Sofradir and Onera have therefore overcome several obstacles to improving the overall image quality in missile warning systems.

Tags: Sofradir HgCdTe MCT IR detector

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