Panoramic monocentric imaging using fiber-coupled focal planes

Opt Express. 2014 Dec 29;22(26):31708-21. doi: 10.1364/OE.22.031708.

Abstract

Monocentric lenses provide high-resolution wide field of view imaging onto a hemispherical image surface, which can be coupled to conventional focal planes using fiber-bundle image transfer. We show the design and characterization of a 2-glass concentric F/1.0 lens, and describe integration of 5 Mpixel 1.75µm pitch back-side illuminated color CMOS sensors with 2.5µm pitch fiber bundles, then show the fiber-coupled lens compares favorably in both resolution and light collection to a 10x larger conventional F/4 wide angle photographic lens. We describe assembly of the monocentric lens and 6 adjacent sensors with focus optomechanics into an extremely compact 30Mpixel panoramic imager with a 126° "letterbox" format field of view.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Fiber Optic Technology / instrumentation*
  • Image Enhancement / instrumentation*
  • Lenses*
  • Photography / instrumentation*
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation*