Wide-Field-of-View Multispectral Camera Design for Continuous Turfgrass Monitoring.

Sustainably using resources, while reducing the use of chemicals, is of major importance in agriculture, including turfgrass monitoring. Today, crop monitoring often uses camera-based drone sensing, offering an accurate evaluation but typically requiring a technical operator. To enable autonomous and continuous monitoring, we propose a novel five-channel multispectral camera design suitable for integrating it inside lighting fixtures and enabling the sensing of a multitude of vegetation indices by covering visible, near-infrared and thermal wavelength bands. To limit the number of cameras, and in contrast to the drone-sensing systems that show a small field of view, a novel wide-field-of-view imaging design is proposed, featuring a field of view exceeding 164°. This paper presents the development of the five-channel wide-field-of-view imaging design, starting from the optimization of the design parameters and moving toward a demonstrator setup and optical characterization. All imaging channels show an excellent image quality, indicated by an MTF exceeding 0.5 at a spatial frequency of 72 lp/mm for the visible and near-infrared imaging designs and 27 lp/mm for the thermal channel. Consequently, we believe our novel five-channel imaging design paves the way toward autonomous crop monitoring while optimizing resource usage.

Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator.

Wide field-of-view imaging optics offer a huge potential for space-based Earth observation enabling the capture of global data. Reflective imaging telescopes are often favored, as they do not show chromatic aberrations and are less susceptible to radiation darkening than their refractive counterparts. However, the main drawback of reflective telescopes is that they are limited with respect to field-of-view while featuring large dimensions. We propose the use of freeform optics to maximize the field of view while maintaining diffraction-limited image quality and minimizing system dimensions. In this paper, we present a novel freeform wide field-of-view reflective telescope, starting from the optical design, and continuing to tolerancing analysis and manufacture, towards a proof-of-concept demonstrator. The novel telescope features a full field-of-view of 120° while showing an exceptional spatial resolution of 2.6 km and fitting within 1 CubeSat unit. To the best of our knowledge, this is the widest field-of-view that has ever been realized for a space-based telescope, nearly reaching Earth observation from limb to limb from an altitude of about 700 km. We hope this design paves the way for future space missions enabling improved Earth observation and leading to enhanced monitoring of climate and climate change.

Design and demonstration of a six-channel multiresolution imaging system.

Multichannel imaging systems consist of multiple channels that have different imaging characteristics (fields-of-view and angular resolutions). We design and demonstrate a six-channel multiresolution imaging system that can achieve a relative magnification ratio of up to 10 times between the channels and at the same time result in different depths-of-field. The imaging system consists of two double-sided lens arrays made of PMMA material, a baffle to eliminate possible cross talk between neighboring channels, and a Sony full-frame image sensor. The imaging system was tested by capturing images of stationary and moving objects. The acquired images exhibit different resolutions, fields-of-view, and levels of blur proving our concept.

Miniature freeform flow-line lightguide for sensing: from design to fabrication.

We present the development of a compact (about 1.3 × 2.0 × 20 mm3) freeform optical lightguide for sensing applications, from the conceptual design to the fabrication through injection molding. The design of the optic is based on the flow-line method from Nonimaging Optics, which allows the desired optical functionalities (45° half-acceptance and 40° beam steering) while meeting particularly tight mechanical and geometrical constraints. An extensive analysis of the effects of fabrication parameters on the performances demonstrates the importance of minimizing the fillet radius. This requisite inspired a special procedure for designing the mold, which is built as a "3D puzzle" assembly of separate pieces, each one dedicated to one specific side surface of the lightguide. This technique enables uniform optical quality on all the optic's surfaces and removes the need of a fillet radius in the mold. At present, the first lightguide prototypes have been fabricated; after the coating phase, they will be ready for the validation stage.

Reflective liquid crystal hybrid beam-steerer.

We report on efficient optical beam-steering using a hot-embossed reflective blazed grating in combination with liquid crystal. A numerical simulation of the electrical switching characteristics of the liquid crystal is performed and the results are used in an FDTD optical simulator to analyze the beam deflection. The corresponding experiment on the realized device is performed and is found to be in good agreement. Beam deflection angles of 4.4° upon perpendicular incidence are found with low applied voltages of 3.4 V. By tilting the device with respect to the incoming optical beam it can be electronically switched such that the beam undergoes either total internal reflection or reflection with a tunable angle.

Mass-manufacturable polymer microfluidic device for dual fiber optical trapping.

We present a microfluidic chip in Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) for optical trapping of particles in an 80µm wide microchannel using two counterpropagating single-mode beams. The trapping fibers are separated from the sample fluid by 70µm thick polymer walls. We calculate the optical forces that act on particles flowing in the microchannel using wave optics in combination with non-sequential ray-tracing and further mathematical processing. Our results are compared with a theoretical model and the Mie theory. We use a novel fabrication process that consists of a premilling step and ultraprecision diamond tooling for the manufacturing of the molds and double-sided hot embossing for replication, resulting in a robust microfluidic chip for optical trapping. In a proof-of-concept demonstration, we show the trapping capabilities of the hot embossed chip by trapping spherical beads with a diameter of 6µm, 8µm and 10µm and use the power spectrum analysis of the trapped particle displacements to characterize the trap strength.

Optical modeling of changeable laser image functionality with analysis of the viewing performance.

Changeable laser image is a security feature commonly used on personalized documents. To understand and to predict the influence of different design parameters, a holistic optical modeling approach is essential. In this work a two-stage modeling process is performed using geometric ray tracing methods. The first stage, based on a basic optical model, allows us to identify the influencing parameters and to determine optimum solutions. The second stage, based on an advanced model, allows us to evaluate the optimum performance quantitatively in terms of the viewing angles and the contrast between two images. Simulation results are verified by experiments.

Two-channel multiresolution refocusing imaging system using a tunable liquid lens.

Multichannel imaging systems currently feature refocusing capabilities only in bulky and expensive designs. Mechanical movements of the components cannot be integrated in miniaturized designs, preventing classical refocusing mechanisms. To overcome this limitation we developed, as a proof-of-concept (POC) demonstration, a compact low-cost two-channel refocusing imaging system based on a voltage-tunable liquid lens. In addition, the design can be realized with wafer-level manufacturing techniques. One channel of the imaging system enables a wide field of view (FOV) of a scene (2×40°) but with a limited angular resolution (0.078°), while the other channel gives a high angular resolution (0.0098°) image of a small region of interest but with a much narrower FOV (2×7.57°). It is this high-resolution channel that contains the tunable lens and therefore the refocusing capability. A POC demonstration of the proposed two-channel system was built and its performances were measured. Both imaging channels show good overall diffraction-limited image quality.

Demonstration of a multichannel, multiresolution imaging system.

In conventional multichannel imaging systems, all channels have similar imaging properties [field-of-view (FOV) and angular resolution]. In our approach, channels are designed to have different imaging properties which add multiresolution capability to the system. We have experimentally demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, a three-channel imaging system which simultaneously captures multiple images having different magnifications and FOVs on an image sensor. Each channel consists of four aspherical lens surfaces fabricated from four PMMA plates by ultraprecision diamond tooling and of a baffle made from a titanium (Ti) and aluminum (Al) based metal alloy. The integrated imaging system is able to record a FOV of 7.6° with the first channel and 73° with the third channel while having a magnification ratio of about 6 between them. The experimental and simulation results, specifically the FOV and magnification ratios, are comparable, and this paves a way for low-cost, compact imaging systems which can embed smart imaging functionalities.