Merlin microbolometer camera calibration

The Low Cost Gun Launched Seeker (LCGLS) is a component of the Navy's effort to develop effective weapons for surface fire support missions by enhancing the performance of projectiles like the Extended Range Guided Munitions (ERGM) with low-cost, uncooled infrared (IR) staring focal plane array (FPA) terminal seekers. IR target images for validating target detection algorithms were collected using a Merlin long wave (LWIR) camera from Indigo Systems. This paper characterizes the camera in order to develop performance parameters for simulating the seeker and to understand features in the imagery. These parameters include temperature response, temporal noise characteristics, fixed pattern noise, and the modulation transfer function (MTF).