Full aperture image synthesis using rotating strip aperture image measurements
First Claim
1. A spinning strip radiometer system comprising:
- a telescope comprised of a rotating strip aperture that rotates around an optical axis and that produces temporally sequential images of a scene;
a two-dimensional detector array for detecting images located in the focal plane of the telescope;
a signal processor coupled to the detector array for recording a plurality of image frames of the image scene as the strip aperture rotates around the optical axis of the telescope, and for synthesizing a full circular aperture image from the recorded image frames.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A spinning strip aperture imaging radiometer sensor system and data processing method that is capable of synthesizing full circular aperture images from a plurality of image frames acquired by the strip aperture imaging sensor. One embodiment of the imaging system comprises a rotating strip aperture wide field of view telescope, a two dimensional detector array used to detect images in the telescope'"'"'s focal plane, a rotation compensation device used to prevent rotational smear during the integration time of the detectors, a signal processor used to record a plurality of image frames of a target scene that is imaged by the telescope as it rotates around its optical axis, and a signal processor and method used to synthesize the full circular aperture image from the recorded images. The operation of the full aperture image synthesis method hinges upon the ability of the rotating strip aperture to measure all of the spatial frequencies contained in a full circular aperture image measurement. Having knowledge of the strip apertures'"'"' spatial frequency passband, and the temporal registrations of each of the recorded strip aperture images permits synthesis of the full aperture image by the sensor system and image synthesis method. Image synthesis may be accomplished in the spatial or spatial frequency domains. General and illustrative examples of the image synthesis procedure and first order noise performance predictions are described. A general form of the invention utilizes two dimensional spatial frequency information to greatly reduce the line of sight stability requirements of the telescope.
-
Citations
31 Claims
-
1. A spinning strip radiometer system comprising:
-
a telescope comprised of a rotating strip aperture that rotates around an optical axis and that produces temporally sequential images of a scene; a two-dimensional detector array for detecting images located in the focal plane of the telescope; a signal processor coupled to the detector array for recording a plurality of image frames of the image scene as the strip aperture rotates around the optical axis of the telescope, and for synthesizing a full circular aperture image from the recorded image frames. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
-
-
7. A spinning strip radiometer system that comprises:
-
a rotating strip aperture telescope that comprises an optical axis and that produces temporally sequential images of a scene; a two-dimensional detector array for detecting images located in the focal plane of the telescope; a rotation compensation means for producing a stationary image by compensating for the image rotation during the integration time of the detector; and a signal processor for recording a plurality of image frames of a scene imaged by the telescope as it rotates around the optical axis of the telescope, and for synthesizing a full circular aperture image from the recorded image frames; whereby the spinning strip radiometer system synthesizes a circular full aperture radiometric image from a plurality of rotating strip aperture image measurements, while compensating for random line of sight errors between individual strip aperture images to provide a high resolution image. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
-
-
14. An image synthesizing method for use with a spinning strip aperture radiometer that records image data as a spinning strip aperture rotates about its optical axis, said method comprising the steps of:
-
recording an image frame as the spinning strip aperture rotates about an optical axis; interpolating the data in the image frame; performing a coordinate transformation on the data in the image frame; Fourier transforming the data in the image frame; estimating the frame to frame misregistration of the data in the image frame; correcting for misregistration of the data in the image frame; adding the corrected image frame data to a buffer; repeating the above steps for each image frame, and wherein after all image frames have been processed and added to the buffer, the data in the buffer is representative of the full aperture image information; spatially filtering the image data representative of the full aperture image information with a synthesizer; and inverse Fourier transforming the spatially filtered image data to provide a synthesized image.
-
-
15. An image synthesizing method for use in an imaging system having a spinning strip aperture telescope that rotates around its optical axis, a two-dimensional detector array for detecting images located in the focal plane of the telescope, rotation compensation means for providing a stationary image during the integration time of detectors of the detector array, and a signal processor for recording a plurality of image frames of a scene imaged by the telescope as it rotates around the optical axis of the telescope, and for synthesizing a full circular aperture image from the recorded image frames, wherein the synthesizing method comprises the following steps:
-
recording and storing an image frame; interpolating and coordinate transforming the stored frame such that it corresponds to a reference coordinate grid of the synthesized image; spatially Fourier transforming and storing the data in the image frame; recording and storing the remainder of the image frames; estimating the frame-to-frame misregistration of the data due to random line of sight errors; correcting a selected one of the strip aperture images, or its Fourier transform, for the line of sight errors and storing the corrected image or Fourier transform; sequentially repeating the preceding steps for each strip aperture image frame; and after all image frames have been processed and saved; synthesizing a full aperture image spectrum by summing redundant individual spatial frequency components from the strip aperture measurements that correspond to the reference coordinate grid of the full aperture spatial frequencies to provide a summed result; dividing the summed result by the number of frames contributing to the spatial frequency redundancy; spatial frequency filtering the resultant data using an appropriate spatial frequency synthesizer to produce a synthesized image spectrum; and inverse Fourier transforming the synthesized image spectrum to provide a full aperture image. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
-
-
26. An image synthesizing method for use in an imaging system having a spinning strip aperture telescope that rotates around its optical axis, a two-dimensional detector array for detecting images located in the focal plane of the telescope, and a signal processor for recording a plurality of strip image frames of a scene imaged by the telescope as it rotates around an optical axis, and for synthesizing a full circular aperture image from the recorded image frames, wherein the synthesizing method comprises the following steps:
-
recording and storing a strip image frame; interpolating and coordinate transforming the stored frame such that it corresponds to a reference coordinate grid of the synthesized image; storing the data in the strip image frame; recording and storing another image frame; estimating the frame-to-frame misregistration of the data due to random line of sight errors; correcting a selected one of the strip aperture images, or their Fourier transforms, for their line of sight errors and storing the corrected images or Fourier transforms, respectively; sequentially repeating the preceding steps for each strip aperture image frame; and after all image frames have been corrected for frame to frame registration errors and saved; synthesizing a full aperture image or image spectrum using statistically optimal synthesizers. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
-
Specification