Configurable Passband Imaging Spectrometer Based on Acousto-optic Tunable Filter

摘要

This work presents a new configurable imaging spectrometer called Autonomous Tunable Filtering System (ATFS). The system can be configured to acquire a single narrow spectral band, a composite multispectral image, or a broad pass-band. This flexibility is given by the use of an Acousto-Optic Tunable Filter (AOTF) driven by a programmable radio frequency (rf) signal generator. The AOTF acts as a light-diffraction element which output wavelength is selected by the frequency of an rf signal applied to it. The designed rf driver is based on a high-speed Digital-to-Analog converter, which can synthesize any composite rf waveform formed by a combination of sine signals. The images are formed through a carefully designed optical layout and acquired with a high performance digital camera. Spectral and spatial performance of the system is presented in this paper.