SPIE - Education Introduction to Optical and Infrared Sensor Systems SC789

This course provides a broad introduction to optical (near UV-visible) and infrared sensor systems, with an emphasis on systems used in defense and security. Topics include both passive imagers and active laser radars (lidar/ladar). We begin with a discussion of radiometry and radiometric calculations to determine how much optical power is captured by a sensor system. We survey atmospheric propagation and phenomenology (absorption, emission, scattering, and turbulence) and explore how these issues affect sensor systems. Finally, we perform signal calculations that consider the source, the atmosphere, and the optical system and detector, to arrive at a signal-to-noise ratio for typical passive and active sensor systems. These principles of optical radiometry, atmospheric propagation, and optical detection are combined in examples of real sensors studied at the block-diagram level. Sensor system examples include passive infrared imagers, polarization imagers, and hyperspectral imaging spectrometers, and active laser radars (lidars or ladars) for sensing distributed or hard targets. The course organization is approximately one third on the radiometric analysis of sensor systems, one third on atmospheric phenomenology and detector parameters, and one third on example calculations and examination of sensor systems at the block-diagram level.