Compressed sensing for practical optical imaging systems: A tutorial

The emerging field of compressed sensing (CS, also referred to as compressive sampling)^{1, 2} has potentially powerful implications for the design of optical imaging devices. In particular, compressed sensing theory suggests that one can recover a scene at a higher resolution than is dictated by the pitch of the focal plane array. This rather remarkable result comes with some important caveats however, especially when practical issues associated with physical implementation are taken into account. This tutorial discusses compressed sensing in the context of optical imaging devices, emphasizing the practical hurdles related to building such devices and offering suggestions for overcoming these hurdles. Examples and analysis specifically related to infrared imaging highlight the challenges associated with large format focal plane arrays and how these challenges can be mitigated using compressed sensing ideas.