Compact infrared pinhole fisheye for wide field applications

Guillaume Druart (1) , Nicolas Guérineau (1) , Jean Taboury (2) , Sylvain Rommeluère (1) , Riad Haïdar (1) , Jérôme Primot (1) , Manuel Fendler (3) , Jean-Charles Cigna (3)

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Châtillon]
2 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Scop
3 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information

The performances of a compact infrared optical system using advanced pinhole optics for wide field applications are given. This concept is adapted from the classical Tisse design in order to fit with infrared issues. Despite a low light gathering efficiency and a low resolution in comparison with classical lenses, pinhole imagery provides a long depth of field and a wide angular field of view. Moreover, by using a simple lens that compresses the field of view, the angular acceptance of this pinhole camera can be drastically widened to a value around 180{\textdegree}. This infrared compact system is named pinhole fisheye since it is based on the field lens of a classical fisheye system.

Keywords: Diffractive optics; Imaging systems; Image detection systems; Image quality assessment; Integrated optics; Micro-optical devices

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Guillaume Druart, Nicolas Guérineau, Jean Taboury, Sylvain Rommeluère, Riad Haïdar, et al.. Compact infrared pinhole fisheye for wide field applications. Applied optics, 2009, 48 (6), pp.1104--1113. ⟨10.1364/AO.48.001104⟩. ⟨hal-00700221⟩