Spectrally and Spatially Foveated Multi/Hyperspectral Camera

This SBIR Phase II proposal is to develop a prototype spectrally and spatially foveated sensor (SSFS) in the visible to near infrared (VNIR) (400-900 nm) for multispectral/hyperspectral (MS/HS) imaging. The sensor leverages on Kent Optronics pixilated variable bandwidth tunable filter (P-VBTuF) and NOVA Sensors’ variable acuity superpixel imager (VASI) FPA, where the former is for spectral foveation while the later for spatial foveation. The SSFS features the highest spatial and spectral resolution near the “center of attention” (COA), with a radially-symmetric spatial and spectral resolution diminishing radially out from the COA over a wide field-of-view (2 sterodiam). One such sensor serves for both wide area awareness surveillance and narrow FOV details detection. The proposed SSFS imager is regarded as the candidate and will bring immediately the following benefits (refer to Table 1 for more details). • 1,000X data volume reduction • 400X bandwidth reduction within 54MHz bandwidth of 802.11g link • 100’sX reduction in data processing time • Light-weigh of only 15 lb; • Compact size of 512 • Low cost, and • Significant operational cost saving.