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Breakthrough System Utilizes Foveal Vision Paradigm with Infrared Multiresolution Imagery

AIR FORCE RESEARCH LAB

Nova Sensors developed the Variable-Acuity Superpixel Imager (VASI™) under a Phase II SBIR contract to reduce the bandwidth required for IR imagery readout and processing while maintaining maximum resolution foveae on regions of interest (ROI). This accomplishment maps the biologically motivated paradigm of foveal vision from the visible to the IR spectrum. Vertebrate eyes typically have a small area of high resolution (foveal region), in addition to radially decreasing resolution in the periphery. These characteristics allow an animal to maintain visual awareness of its surroundings, they provide the animal with sufficient resolution (using the fovea) to identify objects of interest while processing the imagery with enough speed to successfully react to most dangers. In contrast, most engineered visible or IR camera systems have a fixed spatial resolution that requires trade-offs between the resolution, field of view (FOV), and frame rate in order to process the resultant imagery in real time. Biological systems inspired some designers to develop visible spectrum cameras that have either a programmable or a fixed (requiring a pan/tilt assembly to control the gaze of the system) multiresolution capability. Nova Sensors developed a system that combines the benefits of foveal vision with the advantages of IR sensing.

Applications

  • Military and Commercial Significance:
  • Nova Sensors’ MWIR VASI™ 320 x 256 pixel format camera system uses an
  • indium antimonide detector array bonded to a novel readout integrated circuit
  • that allows individual pixels to share their photocharge with any or all of their
  • neighbors, creating a superpixel. A command controls the photocharge sharing and reconfigures the spatial resolution of the focal plane array (FPA) at the frame rate.
  • This design allows high-resolution foveae to position on ROIs while maintaining
  • lower-resolution surveillance on the rest of their FOV. Since the photocharge
  • sharing occurs on the FPA, the bandwidth required for the image data readout and
  • processing significantly decreases in comparison to traditional IR imagers.
  • Under a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract, Nova Research, Inc. (known as
  • Nova Sensors), developed the first midwave infrared (MWIR) camera system with frame-to-frame,
  • dynamically programmable spatial resolution for AFRL. The multiresolution capability reduces bandwidth
  • requirements for imagery transmission and processing. Its ability to operate in the infrared (IR) spectrum
  • allows nighttime imaging, which benefits the military. Optic flow calculation (using interleaved, lowresolution
  • images) and wavelet decomposition (using the multiresolution capability) are also some of the
  • technology’s advantages.

Provenance

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This record was recovered from a public web archive of dodtechmatch.com and is preserved for historical reference. It may be outdated. Not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Contact details from the original listing have been withheld.