Image quality improvement by the structured light illumination method in an optical readout cantilever array infrared imaging system

The structured light illumination method is applied in an optical readout uncooled infrared imaging system to improve the IR image quality. The unavoidable nonuniform distribution of the initial bending angles of the bimaterial cantilever pixels in the focal plane array (FPA) can be well compensated by this method. An ordinary projector is used to generate structured lights of different intensity distribution. The projected light is divided into patches of rectangular regions, and the brightness of each region can be set automatically according to the deflection angles of the FPA and the light intensity focused on the imaging plane. By this method, the FPA image on the CCD plane can be much more uniform and the image quality of the IR target improved significantly. A comparative experiment is designed to verify the effectiveness. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the proposed structured light illumination method outperforms the conventional one, especially when it is difficult to perfect the FPA fabrication.