• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.8-15
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• 2019

We describe a common optical system that merges a LADAR system, which generates a point cloud, and a more traditional imaging system operating in the LWIR, which generates image data. The optimum diameter of the entrance pupil was determined by analysis of detection ranges of the LADAR sensor, and the result was applied to design a common optical system using LADAR sensors and LWIR sensors; the performance of these sensors was then evaluated. The minimum detectable signal of the $128{\times}128-pixel$ LADAR detector was calculated as 20.5 nW. The detection range of the LADAR optical system was calculated to be 1,000 m, and according to the results, the optimum diameter of the entrance pupil was determined to be 15.7 cm. The modulation transfer function (MTF) in relation to the diffraction limit of the designed common optical system was analyzed and, according to the results, the MTF of the LADAR optical system was 98.8% at the spatial frequency of 5 cycles per millimeter, while that of the LWIR optical system was 92.4% at the spatial frequency of 29 cycles per millimeter. The detection, recognition, and identification distances of the LWIR optical system were determined to be 5.12, 2.82, and 1.96 km, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.209-210
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• 2011

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.574-581
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• 2014

This paper presents the design and evaluation of the optical zoom system for an LWIR camera. The 12.8operating wavelength range of this system is from $7.7{\mu}m$ to $12.8{\mu}m$. Through a paraxial design and optimization process, we have obtained the extended four-group inner-focus zoom system with focal lengths of 10 to 100 mm, which consists of the six lenses including four aspheric surfaces and two diffractive surfaces. The diffractive lenses were used to balance the higher-order aberrations, and its diffraction properties were evaluated by scalar diffraction theory. We have calculated the polychromatic integrated diffraction efficiency and the MTF drop generated by background noise. The f-number of the zoom system is F/1.4 at all positions. Fields of view are given by $51.28^{\circ}{\times}38.46^{\circ}$ at wide field and $5.50^{\circ}{\times}4.12^{\circ}$ at narrow field positions. In conclusion, this design procedure results in a $10{\times}$ compact zoom lens system useful for an LWIR camera.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.185-194
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• 2016

It is essential for generating the synthetic image to test and evaluate a guided missile system in the hardware-in-the-loop simulation. In order to make the evaluation results to be more reliable, the extent of fidelity and rendering performance of the synthetic image cannot be left ignored. There are numerous challenges to simulate the LWIR sensor signature of sea surface depending on the incident angle, especially in the maritime environment. In this paper, we investigate the key factors in determining the apparent temperature of sea surface and propose the approximate formula consisting of optical characteristics of sea surface and sky radiance. We find that the greater the incident angle increases, the larger the reflectivity of sea surface, and the greater the water vapor concentration in atmosphere increases, the larger the amount of sky radiance. On the basis of this information, we generate the virtual maritime environment in LWIR region using the SE-WORKBENCH, physically based rendering software. The margin of error is under seven percentage points.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.6_2
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• pp.1073-1082
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• 2023

Thermal sensors, also called thermal infrared wavelength sensors, measure temperature based on the intensity of infrared signals that reach the sensor. The infrared signals recognized by the sensor include infrared wavelength(0.7~3.0㎛) and radiant infrared wavelength(3.0~100㎛). Infrared(IR) wavelengths are divided into five bands: near infrared(NIR), shortwave infrared(SWIR), midwave infrared(MWIR), longwave infrared(LWIR), and far infrared(FIR). Most thermal sensors use the LWIR to capture images. Thermal sensors measure the temperature of the target in a non-contact manner, and the data can be affected by the sensor's viewing angle between the target and the sensor, the amount of atmospheric water vapor (humidity), air temperature, and ground conditions. In this study, the characteristics of three thermal imaging sensor models that are widely used for observation using unmanned aerial vehicles were evaluated, and the optimal application field was determined.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.37-47
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• 2019

A reflecting omnidirectional optical system with four spherical and aspherical mirrors, for use with long-wavelength infrared light (LWIR) for night surveillance, is proposed. It is designed to include a collecting pseudo-Cassegrain reflector and an imaging inverse pseudo-Cassegrain reflector, and the design process and performance analysis is reported in detail. The half-field of view (HFOV) and F-number of this optical system are $40-110^{\circ}$ and 1.56, respectively. To use the LWIR imaging, the size of the image must be similar to that of the microbolometer sensor for LWIR. As a result, the size of the image must be $5.9mm{\times}5.9mm$ if possible. The image size ratio for an HFOV range of $40^{\circ}$ to $110^{\circ}$ after optimizing the design is 48.86%. At a spatial frequency of 20 lp/mm when the HFOV is $110^{\circ}$, the modulation transfer function (MTF) for LWIR is 0.381. Additionally, the cumulative probability of tolerance for the LWIR at a spatial frequency of 20 lp/mm is 99.75%. As a result of athermalization analysis in the temperature range of $-32^{\circ}C$ to $+55^{\circ}C$, we find that the secondary mirror of the inverse pseudo-Cassegrain reflector can function as a compensator, to alleviate MTF degradation with rising temperature.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.42-45
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• 2016

A two-dimensional metal hole array (2DMHA) structure is fabricated by conventional photo-lithography and electron beam evaporation. The transmittance of the 2DMHA is measured at long wave infrared (LWIR) wavelengths (${\lambda}{\sim}10$ to $24{\mu}m$). The 2DMHA sample shows transmittance of 70 and 67% at $15.4{\mu}m$ due to plasmonic resonance with perforated silver and gold thin films, respectively, under surface normal illumination at LWIR wavelengths. The measured infrared spectrum is separated into two peaks when the size of the hole becomes larger than a half-pitch of the hole array. Six degenerated plasmon modes (1,0) at the metal/Si surface split to three modes at an incident beam angle of $45^{\circ}$ with respect to the surface normal direction, and wavelength shifts of the transmitted spectrum are observed in a red shift and blue shift at the same time.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.125-131
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• 2017

We propose a new graphical method for selecting a pair of optical and housing materials to simultaneously athermalize and achromatize an LWIR optical system. To have a much better opportunity to select the IR glasses and housing materials, an athermal glass map is expanded by introducing the DOE with negative chromatic power. Additionally, from the depth of focus in an LWIR optical system, the tolerable housing boundary is provided to realize an athermal and achromatic system even for not readily available housing material. Thus, we can effectively determine a pair of optical and housing materials by reducing the thermal shift to be less than the depth of focus. By applying this method to design a night vision camera lens, the chromatic and thermal defocuses are reduced to less than the depth of focus, over the specified waveband and temperature ranges.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.48-52
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• 2023

Many studies have been conducted to ensure that Visual Place Recognition is reliable in various environments, including edge cases. However, existing approaches use visible imaging sensors, RGB cameras, which are greatly influenced by illumination changes, as is widely known. Thus, in this paper, we use an invisible imaging sensor, a long wave length infrared camera (LWIR) instead of RGB, that is shown to be more reliable in low-light and highly noisy conditions. In addition, although the camera sensor used to solve this problem is an LWIR camera, but since the thermal image is converted into RGB image the proposed method is highly compatible with existing algorithms and databases. We demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the baseline method by about 0.19 for recall performance.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.354-361
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• 2023

We present the optical design and experimental verification of resolving performance of a 3× long wavelength infrared (LWIR) zoom camera for drones. The effective focal length of the system varies from 24.5 mm at the wide angle position to 75.1 mm at the telephoto position. The design specifications of the system were derived from ground resolved distance (GRD) to recognize 3 m × 6 m target at a distance of 1 km, at the telephoto position. To satisfy the system requirement, the aperture (f-number) of the system is taken as F/1.6 and the final modulation transfer function (MTF) should be higher than 0.1 (10%). The measured MTF in the laboratory was 0.127 (12.7%), exceeds the system requirement. Outdoor targets were used to verify the comprehensive performance of the system. The system resolved 4-bar targets corresponding to the spatial resolution at the distance of 1 km, 1.4 km and 2 km.