Here we report progress in the fabrication, calibration, and testing of a compact spectral imaging camera. The camerauses a micro-array of Fabry-Perot etalons bonded directly to a broadband focal plane array sensor. The array of etalonsadds negligible size and weight to the system compared to a panchromatic imager. Other recent demonstrations ofcompact spectral imagers in the visible and near infrared (VNIR) have commonly used arrays of etalons in a singleorder, thereby reducing the system bandwidth and sensitivity to achieve the required spectral resolution. Here, wedemonstrate a camera utilizing multiple etalon orders in a spectral multiplexing scheme known as Multiple OrderStaircase Etalon Spectrometry (MOSES). An important characteristic of the MOSES system is that there is a relaxedtradeoff between spectral resolution and sensitivity (or etalon throughput). Unlike single-order etalon techniques,MOSES allows for the reconstruction of the spectrum to the bandwidth limit of the detector and reflecting layers. This isimportant in coastal environmental sensing, where IR spectral features may be desired at the same time as UV lighttransmitted through shallow water layers. This VNIR system demonstration indicates the feasibility of MOSES devicesin other wavebands.
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