Depth of focus extension of space-borne optical camera through variable curvature mirror

Abstract

Currently, most space-borne optical cameras have fixed focal length and depth of focus. In this case, the range within which the target can be clearly imaged has been pre-determined before launch. However, the distance of the target to the optical camera might be unknown or change very fast and therefore focus adjustment has to be carried out to obtain clear images. However, no matter which refocusing technique is used, focus adjustment might lag behind the object distance variation and depth of focus extension is a better way. Wave-front coding can be used to extend the depth of focus of incoherent imaging system but the surface profile of the phase mask could not be changed dynamically, which is not flexible for application. In this manuscript, by combing the variable curvature mirror (VCM) and coded imaging technique together, a new depth of focus extension technique is proposed. According to our previous studies, the focal plane could be quickly adjusted by changing the curvature radius of VCM. Compared with the curvature variation speed, the exposure time of the camera is quite long. Therefore, by adjusting the focal plane very fast in a wide range during the exposure through VCM, an equivalent coded optical transfer function having no null frequency points within bandwidth is generated and the image captured is uniformly blurred. After that, with the help of digital restoration, the clear image could be obtained. Because the focal plane could be adjusted through variable curvature mirror in the range of millimeter, the proposed method could be used to obtain clear images with greatly extended depth of focus.