PROGRAMMABLE DIGITAL TDI EO/IR SCANNING FOCAL PLANE ARRAY WITH MULTIPLE SELECTABLE TDI SUB-BANKS

• Main Authors: BOTTS, Steven, PERALTA, Richard J, HARRIS, Micky R, VAMPOLA, John L, KEAN, Bryan W
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 03.04.2024
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION

A TDI scanner including a dynamically programmable focal plane array including a two-dimensional array of detectors arranged in a plurality of columns and a plurality of rows, the array being divided into a plurality of banks separated from one another by gap regions, each bank including a plurality of sub-banks, and each sub-bank including at least one row of detectors, a ROIC coupled to the focal plane array and configured to combine in a TDI process outputs from detectors in each column of detectors in each sub-bank, and a controller configured to program the focal plane array to selectively and dynamically set characteristics of the focal plane array, the characteristics including a size and a location within the two-dimensional array of each of the plurality of sub-banks and the gap regions, the size corresponding to a number of rows of detectors included in the respective sub-bank or gap region.