Increasing dual band infrared zoom ranges

摘要

Pixel binning actively changes the pixel size of a detector element in an optical system. When combined with a fixed focal length lens it has the same effect on field of view as changing the focal length of a lens with a fixed pixel size. The change in pixel size scales the instantaneous field of view, and if the size of the FPA scales equally, so does the field of view. This capability can be combined with traditional optical zoom lenses to significantly increase the overall zoom range of an optical system. In a multi-spectral, dual band zoom lens, the combination of optical and pixel zoom reduces the complexity of the optics while significantly increasing the overall zoom range. The benefits of combining both optical and pixel zoom in a dual band infrared system is explored in this paper.