OPTRA has developed a two-band midwave infrared (MWIR) scene projector based on digital micromirror device (DMD) technology; the projector is intended for training various IR tracking systems that exploit the relative intensities of two separate MWIR spectral bands. Next generation tracking systems have increasing dynamic range requirements (on the order of 12-bits) which current DMD-based projector test equipment is not capable of meeting. While sufficient grayscale digitization can be achieved with drive electronics, commensurate contrast is not currently available. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the contrast of our MWIR DMD-based scene projector. A series of factors which affect the overall contrast are modeled and design approaches to address the worst offenders are presented. In addition, we present methods for meeting the grayscale digitization requirements through the drive electronics.
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