Hybrid fiber coupled artificial compound eye

• Main Author: REININGER FRANCIS MARK
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 08.09.2009
• Subjects: OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS, OR APPARATUS; OPTICS; PHYSICS

A hybrid, wide angle imaging system combines high sensitivity superposition arrays with a high resolution apposition array to generate distortion free images with an infinite depth of field. A conformal, superposition array of Keplerian telescope objectives focuses multiple apertures of light through the tubes of a louver baffle. The baffle tubes are terminated by field stops that separate the focused light into inverted, intermediate sub-images. A superposition array of field lenses, positioned immediately after the field stops, reverses the angles of the light beams. An apposition array of erector lenses, linked optically to the superposition arrays and field stops, refocuses and adjoins the beams into a single, upright image. The upright image is formed on the convex surface of a fiber optic imaging taper, which transfers the image to the flat bottom of the taper where it can be viewed through an eyepiece or digitized by a detector array.