Deformable mirror-based optical design of dynamic local athermal longwave infrared optical systems

摘要

This paper presents a dynamic local athermalisation method for longwave infrared (LWIR) optical systems; the proposed design uses a deformable mirror and is based on active optics theory. A local athermal LWIR optical system is designed as an example. The deformable mirror is tilted by 45 degrees near the exit pupil of the system. The thermal aberrations are corrected by the deformable mirror for the local athermal field of view (FOV) that ranges from -40 degrees C to 80 degrees C. The types of thermal aberrations are analysed. Simulated results show that the local athermal LWIR optical system can effectively detect targets in the region of interest within a large FOV and correct thermal aberrations in actual working environments in real time. The system has numerous potential applications in infrared detection and tracking, surveillance and remote sensing. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.