IR imaging system with decreased hyperfocal distance

A long wave infrared (LWIR) computational imaging system has been designed and fabricated that has a decreased hyperfocal distance compared to traditional optics. Through the combination of aspheric optics and signal processing the near point with clear imagery has been reduced from 50m to less than 10m. Both systems deliver high quality imaging when the object is at infinity. The decrease in the hyperfocal distance was realized though the use of Wavefront Coding, a technology where all system components are jointly optimized. The system components include the optics, detector and signal processing. System optimization is used with optical/digital constraints such as manufacturability, cost, signal processing architecture, FPA characteristics, etc. Through a special design of the system's optical phase, the system becomes invariant to the aberrations that traditionally limit the effective operational range. In the process of becoming invariant, the specialized phase creates a uniform blur across the detected image. Signal processing is applied to remove the blur, resulting in a high quality image. In this paper imagery from the Wavefront Coded system is described and compared to traditional imagery.