Chemical Imaging Sensor and Laser Beacon

Design and functional aspects of PANSPEC, a panoramic-imaging chemical vapor sensor (PANSPEC is an abbreviation for infrared panoramic-viewing spectroradiometer), were advanced and its optical system reoptimized accordingly. The PANSPEC model unites camera and fused solid-state interferometer and photopolarimeter subsystems. The camera is an eye of the open atmosphere that collects, collimates, and images ambient infrared radiance from a panoramic field of view (FOV). The passive interferometer rapidly measures an infrared-absorbing (or infrared-emitting) chemical cloud traversing the FOV by means of molecular vibrational spectroscopy. The active photopolarimeter system provides a laser beam beacon. This beam carries identification (feature spectra measured by the interferometer) and heading (detector pixels disclosing these feature spectra) information on the hazardous cloud through a binary encryption of Mueller matrix elements. Interferometer and photopolarimeter share a common configuration of photoelastic modulation optics. PANSPEC was optimized for minimum aberrations and maximum resolution of image. The optimized design was evaluated for tolerances in the shaping and mounting of the optical system, stray light, and ghost images at the focal plane given a modulation transfer function metric.