TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Sensors

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA-263, Navy UAV Program; PMA-262, Maritime UAV Program; PMA-266, PMA-268

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: Develop novel approaches for creating and capturing image data beyond current range capabilities of optical imaging systems.

DESCRIPTION: Operationally, we are trying to extend the ranges and conditions under which a sensor can provide imagery. Such a system will improve the speed for F2T2EA (Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, and Assess). The proposed approaches can be either strictly post-processing software or a combination of novel hardware and software. Novel hardware approaches should have size, power and weight considerations that are appropriate for man portable or small UAV systems. It is one goal to produce images that exceed the diffraction limit of the optical aperture. Software only solutions or combinations of software and hardware solutions to provide the increased capability are both acceptable technical approaches. Ideally the proposed solutions will have the capability to produce enhanced images at a 1Hz rate, under severe atmospheric conditions. Severe atmospheric conditions implies that imaging conditions are less than ideal, with high absolute humidity, large concentrations of particulate matter, strong and variable wind conditions, and high temperatures inducing atmospheric turbulence.

Enhanced or super-resolution images at extended ranges admit many different solutions, each equating to a different problem to solve. The basic physical problems to overcome are the limits that physical geometry and optics of any camera system impose on the resolution performance, and the environmental factors such as turbulence, particulates, and humidity that contribute to degraded image quality. Any proposed approach should provide better image quality and resolution than a comparable imaging system of the same size, with the goal of exceeding the diffraction and seeing limits, and negating severe environmental effects.

The proposed approach should provide enhanced images (512x512 pixels) at a 1 Hz rate, with image resolutions at the diffraction limit or beyond for the given aperture, under severe environmental conditions. The government will provide limited sample data to performers who are pursuing strictly software image enhancement approaches.

PHASE I: Determine and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. This may include computer simulation of the proposed solution, initial image enhancement results on government furnished data and/or company data, or example imagery captured from early prototype systems.

PHASE II: Design, develop and demonstrate an end to end optical imaging system prototype that will produce images at a 1Hz rate, with image resolutions at or beyond the diffraction limit, under severe atmospheric conditions. Demonstrate the prototype under challenging atmospheric conditions, to include drastic heat, induced turbulence and possibly wind speeds above 15mph.

PHASE III: Transition the technology to interested platforms.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Super-resolution sensors can be used in the mobile phone market to great advantage. Rather than increase cost for mobile phone cameras, which typically have lower resolution and capabilities, providing super-resolution software can significantly increase the quality and capability of camera phones. The same argument can be made for digital cameras. Super-resolution will provide higher image quality using the same or similar camera hardware, at little or no extra cost.

REFERENCES:
1. M. Vorontsov, G. Carhart and J.C. Ricklin, Opt. Lett. 22, 907-909 (1997).

2. Vorontsov, M. A., G. W. Carhart, JOSA A Vol. 18, No 6, 1312, 2001; http://josaa.osa.org/abstract.cfm?uri=josaa-18-6-1312.

3. S. Farsiu, D. Robinson, M. Elad, and P. Milanfar, "Advances and Challenges in Super-Resolution", Invited Paper, International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, Special Issue on High Resolution Image Reconstruction, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 47-57, August 2004.

4. S. Farsiu , D. Robinson, M. Elad, and P. Milanfar, "Fast and Robust Multi-frame Super-resolution", IEEE Transactions on Image Processing , vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 1327-1344 , October 2004.

5. S. Farsiu, M. Elad, and P. Milanfar, "Multi-Frame Demosaicing and Super-Resolution of Color Images", IEEE Trans. on Image Processing vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 141-159, Jan. 2006.

6. S. Farsiu, M. Elad, and P. Milanfar, "Video-to-Video Dynamic Superresolution for Grayscale and Color Sequences," EURASIP Journal of Applied Signal Processing, Special Issue on Superresolution Imaging , Volume 2006, Article ID 61859, Pages 1�15.

7. UCLA CAM Report 7-18 Antonio Marquina and Stanley Osher, Image Super-Resolution by TV-Regularization, July 2007 http://www.math.ucla.edu/applied/cam/index.html.

8. UCLA CAM Report 6-36 Antonio Marquina, Inverse Scale Space Methods for Blind Deconvolution, June 2006 http://www.math.ucla.edu/applied/cam/index.html.

KEYWORDS: imaging; super-resolution; optical sensor; turbulence; lucky imaging; deblurring;

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