So 3568646

OSA Optical Design and Fabrication Congress 2021 ©
IW5A.3.pdf
OSA 2021
Design of an Ultra Broadband, Wide-Field-of-View Push-

Broom Imaging Radiometer
Adam Phenis*a, Alexander Cheff Haltermanb, Andrew Nicholsb, Jason Mudgec, Alicia Maccarroneb
a
AMP Optics, LLC, 13308 Midland Rd. #1304, Poway, CA, USA, 92074, bQuartus Engineering Incorporated, 9689 Towne Centre Dr., San
Diego, CA, USA, 92121, cGolden Gate Light Optimization, LLC, 2912 Diamond St. Ste 347, San Frqncisco,CA, USA 94131
*aphenis@amp-optics.com
Abstract: The design for a push-broom radiometer operating from 0.2-50+ µm with a FOR>120°
is presented. The challenge is to design a WFOV radiometer with high accuracy.
1. INTRODUCTION
Imaging radiometers, or alternatively radiometrically calibrated imagers, are being further enabled over wide fields
of view by advances in optical fabrication and metrology techniques, radiometric simulation capabilities, and
detector fabrication advances. These imaging radiometers can be used for many applications and instantiations in
both spaceborne and airborne applications, such as planetary exploration, observation, and environmental
monitoring. Challenges with wide-field-of-view (WFOV) arise with their typical sensitivity to polarization
uncertainty. This uncertainty can greatly affect both the precision and the accuracy of the data product. The
radiometric modeling tools developed for the development of this instrument allow for modeling the impact of scene
polarization variability on the ultimate data product. By exploiting these new technologies and techniques, a unique
implementation can be enabled to get a solution that increases the spatial resolution of the measurement by a factor
of 10 over current space-based radiometers while continuously collecting data over the full field of regard. This
increased resolution and frequency of data collection enables more accurate clear-versus-cloudy sky investigations,
while also reducing mass and cost by an order of magnitude over current approaches and brings a potentially new
data set of reflected solar observations through polarimetric data products in a tailorable and scalable design
implementation. A push-broom WFOV reflective telescope that balances optical performance, field-of-view (FOV),
and radiometric accuracy that captures multiple spectral bands in one package is presented here.
2. OVERVIEW OF IMAGING RADIOMETER

The ideal space-based radiometer has the ability to capture accurate data from limb-to-limb and beyond, as the
radiometer travels through its orbit. As a push-broom (line scanner) implementation, a very wide field of view
design is wanted to capture large swaths of data. For the design of any radiometrically calibrated instrument, the full
energy budget must be accounted for whether it is a quantum counting or an uncooled thermal detector. An accurate
account or simulation tool provides the high-level performance of the designed optical train and compares them with
needed requirements. Through combining radiometric modelling with optical design analysis products, performance
predictions, backed up by testing, are able to be analyzed for feasibility and accuracy. As in any imaging sensor and
based on the optical design, PSF can be determined and compared with the resolution requirement [1].
The radiometric accuracy is critical and multiple trade studies were performed to arrive at the current
optical design. These trade studies included: focal plane array (FPA), optical performance, radiometric accuracy,
and polarization. A critical component for this imaging radiometer is a single FPA that is sensitive to all
wavelengths in this extremely broad wavelength range. Detectors that have this ability include microbolometers and
thermopiles with absorptive coatings such as gold black, or absorptive structures, such as DRS’ umbrella absorber
[2,3]. The optical design for this development effort is based on a detector array size of 21 mm, which works with
both commercially available microbolometers as well as custom thermopile arrays. A reflective system was chosen
for this design as the only available material that refracts the full wavelength range is diamond.
All optical coatings have a different reflectance for the S and P polarization states (Rs & Rp) and light from
any planetary scene is expected to be partially polarized, especially for the reflected solar band and scenes that go
over the ocean or bodies of water. The difference between Rs and Rp can impact the certainty of the radiometric
measurements and, for most coatings, their difference increases as the angle of incidence increases. For this reason,
for a wide field of view, to keep the accuracy and precision of the data product sufficiently high, an optical design
with a single freeform mirror was selected. Multiple mirror telescope designs were explored, such as TMAs,
Schwarzschilds, and concentric telescopes, but their effect on the data product accuracy due to polarization
uncertainty was prohibitively high. The modeling techniques developed for the instrument development effort along
OSA Optical Design and Fabrication Congress 2021 ©
IW5A.3.pdf
OSA 2021
with improvements in deterministic grinding and polishing techniques, commonly utilized in freeform optic
fabrication, enabled the development of what had previously been a limited option for radiometric instruments.
Since this system is a thermal imaging system, minimizing uncertainty due to background was a strong
consideration from the onset. As such, during the design effort, the system was designed to have the smallest F/#
while balancing the optical performance. By having a small F/#, the impact from thermal variations of the
background is reduced and more scene signal on the detector. Another way to reduce the uncertainty due to the
background is by implementing a more accurately thermally controlled field stop array at the image plane to limit
the FPA pixels view of the larger housing.
The telescope design, as illustrated in Figure 1a is a near-telecentric system utilizing a decentered Zernike
Polynomial freeform mirror operating at F/1.3. In the future this approach can utilize filter arrays to capture discrete
wavebands of interest, as illustrated in Figure 1b. This approach of heavily leveraging modeling and advances in
fabrication and measurement techniques can allow derivatives of this instrument to be utilized for a wide variety of
applications, looking at various fields of view, wavelengths, and potentially capturing the incident polarization data.
This baseline design is currently being fabricated for brassboard testing.
Figure 1: (a) Optical Design; (b) IFOV & Band Implementation

3. References
[1] Jason Mudge, “Back-of-the-envelope image resolution estimation using an aberrated Rayleigh criterion,” Appl. Opt., 59(33), 2020
[2] Nazia B. Munir, J. R. Mahan, and Kory J. Priestley, “First-principle model for the directional spectral absorptivity of gold-black in the near
infrared,” Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 36(10), 2019.
[3] Paul W. Kruse, “Uncooled Thermal Imaging,” SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA, 2001. See Table 7-2.

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OSA Optical Design and Fabrication Congress 2021 ©

Design of an Ultra Broadband, Wide-Field-of-View Push-

2. OVERVIEW OF IMAGING RADIOMETER

Figure 1: (a) Optical Design; (b) IFOV & Band Implementation

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