Wave-front coded optical readout for the MEMS-based uncooled infrared imaging system

In the space limited infrared imaging system based MEMS, the adjustment of optical readout part is inconvenient. This paper proposed a method of wave-front coding to extend the depth of focus/field of the optical readout system, to solve the problem above, and to reduce the demanding for precision in processing and assemblage of the optical readout system itself as well. The wave-front coded imaging system consists of optical coding and digital decoding. By adding a CPM (Cubic Phase Mask) on the pupil plane, it becomes non-sensitive to defocussing within an extended range. The system has similar PSFs and almost equally blurred intermediate images can be obtained. Sharp images are supposed to be acquired based on image restoration algorithms, with the same PSF as a decoding core-We studied the conventional optical imaging system, which had the same optical performance with the wave-front coding one for comparing. Analogue imaging experiments were carried out. And one PSF was used as a simple direct inverse filter, for imaging restoration. Relatively sharp restored images were obtained. Comparatively, the analogue defocussing images of the conventional system were badly destroyed. Using the decrease of the MTF as a standard, we found the depth of focus/field of the wave-front coding system had been extended significantly.