Tech Spotlight: System for Passive Optical Imaging and Ranging

Investigators at the University of Colorado have developed a novel method and system for passive optical imaging and ranging. In this technique, the distance of objects to an optical system is estimated in conjunction (if so desired) with other parameters such as the object brightness and object transverse position. .An optical mask such as a diffractive optical element is placed within the optics in front of a sensor array such as a CCD or CMOS device. The optical mask encodes the three-dimensional response of the system. A particular implementation creates a point spread function (“PSF”) that rotates as a function of the object position. The image or images are digitally processed to recover both a depth map of the scene and other parameters such as image brightness. The task of the digital process is to implement an estimation algorithm selected from a variety of methods according to system tradeoffs between processing time and estimate accuracy. The system and method provide depth resolution beyond the depth-of-field limit imposed by the numerical aperture of the system. Competing technologies are very cumbersome; they typically require two cameras and heavy computation. None can provide depth super-resolution. The novel method developed at the University of Colorado can be implemented with very low cost under mass production.

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