Aerial reconnaissance camera using optical drum and mirror rotation mechanism

In this paper, a new design technique is presented to the aerial reconnaissance camera by applying an optical drum and a mirror rotation mechanism. In the camera design, the optical drum is installed optically parallel to the aircraft velocity, and the mirror positioned inside of the optical drum is designed optically perpendicular to the aircraft velocity. Two novel features of our proposed camera are its small space occupancy and that it can provide super wide angle images. Moreover, partial images are taken during the optical drum rotation. Image motions caused by roll and pitch angle disturbance can be compensated by the optical drum rotation and mirror rotation respectively. Finally, three-channel images obtained from the actual flights are presented to demonstrate our designed camera.