Considerations for optical sensor design

In the last decade, China experienced rapid development of spaceborne high resolution optical sensor. A good example is CBERS-02B satellite launched in 2007, whose spatial resolution is 2.36m and satisfies requirement from many fields. However, several problems need to be solved for further improvement in spatial resolution. With the same detector number, higher spatial resolution leads to unfavorable narrower swath..And adopting agile imaging will derives more geometric distortions. Cost control prefers a small and light sensor with small diameter of mirror, which leads to low irradiance on the focal plane. Such radiometric and geometric problems could be solved in data processing scheme. Therefore, data processing scheme should be paid more attention in optical sensor design. Since the design of optical sensor is systematic and complicated, in this paper, only selected issues were considered and analyzed to put up with demands for the support from technique development.