MWIR wide-area step and stare imager

Boulder Nonlinear Systems (BNS) has demonstrated a MWIR step and stare imaging system for AFRL that eliminates the need for turrets and multiple cameras to scale the performance of available thermal imagers. The demonstration system non-mechanically switches between fields-of-regard in a Hex-7 pattern to achieve 0.1 milliradian resolution within a 17.5x17.5 degree field-of-regard. The sub-millisecond shutter switching time and polarization independence maximizes the imaging integration time and sensitivity. The system uses a 1024x1024 (19.5 micron square pixels) InSb camera with a 4.5 to 5 micron passband filter. Larger area detectors could be used to obtain larger fields-of-view, or the system could be scaled to a larger pattern of shutter arrays. The system was developed to provide a cost-effective method of providing night-vision and thermal imaging capabilities for persistent, high-resolution surveillance applications with sufficient resolution to track mounted and un-mounted threats. The demo hardware was engineered to enable near-term field and flight testing.