IR Panomorph Lens Imager and Applications

During the last decade, protection of civilian and military operational platforms or vehicles against threats has been an issue of increased importance. A significant difference exists between warfare as viewed ten years ago and the nature of conflict today. More emphasis is being placed on short range positive ID, wide field of regard situational awareness and quick reaction times .The standard countermeasure is inadequate when not accompanied by a set of efficient sensor. The sensor packages primarily consisting of an alerting device of four different detection steps: pre-alert, giving the directions of possible attack, detection of an action of attack, identification of the threat and finally the precise localization (3-D). The design of the alerting device is greatly depending on which it will be used, the associated cost and the nature of the threat. Recently the requirements for these sensors have become more and more stringent due to the growing number of scenarios. The attack can practically be from any direction, implying the need for a large Field of Regard, the attack range and the type of threat can vary considerably. Especially the localization at short ranges is a challenging issue which can be addressed by an optimized panoramic imager. The new panoramic IR panomorph lens imager, considered, and evaluated at ImmerVision is presented for integration on various platforms. This innovative panomorph approach provides enhanced performance with better pixel/cost ratio by providing an increased resolution in the zone of interest. The IR panomorph based sensor is as an aberration-corrected hemispheric imager with a custom lens designed to match the resolution the IR camera (MWIR-LWIR) with improved image quality , field coverage and resolution for target detection, classification, and tracking. Various configurations and scenarios including advantages and drawbacks are discussed.