Office of Naval Research

Description

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) seeks fundamental technical innovations to revolutionize spatial, temporal, and compositional scene characterization at stand-off distances ranging from hundreds of meters to tens of kilometers in different frequency regions of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum (visible, near, mid and long wavelength infrared as well as millimeter wave). A traditional imaging system augmented with processing and exploitation by computers has been the dominant framework to answer the questions "who, what, where and when." Recent progress in semiconductor arrays for detecting EM radiation has spurred unprecedented advances in imaging sensors in visible and IR bands. In this research announcement, we encourage breaking this familiar paradigm and rethinking the challenge of spatial, temporal, and compositional scene characterization from a new perspective. Specific challenges faced by the Navy, some of which are described below, necessitate this change in thinking. The four (4) specific research topics of interest under this BAA are as follows: 1. Over the past fifty (50) years, advances in image intensifier technology and long-wave and mid-wave infrared (IR) imaging systems have allowed our warfighters to conquer darkness and "own the night." Unfortunately, that operational edge has largely disappeared due to wide spread proliferation of night vision technology. A significant challenge now facing the Navy and other services is high fidelity sensing in severely degraded environments, such as fog, clouds, rain, dust, smoke, and sea spray. Innovations in sensing could dramatically improve capabilities to navigate, detect and engage targets and improve situational awareness in a broad range of operational conditions. Approaches to sensing in degraded environments may be passive, i.e., wherein natural or man-made ambient sources of radiation are outside operator control, or active, wherein the user has some control over the spatial, temporal, spectral, polarization, and quantum properties of the scene illumination. Scene characterization can be achieved using any properties of the EM wavefront, including intensity, phase, polarization, angular momentum, spectral, temporal, statistical, or unique quantum characteristics such as entanglement. Specific spectral effects, such as the Christensen effect, can be employed to reduce scattering significantly and improve visibility through dust (i.e., silica particles). Polarization diversity has also been studied to enhance sensing through haze. By combining physical phenomenology with sophisticated multi-frame processing and reconstruction, and potentially including image priors, significant advances in scene characterization at stand-off distances may be achieved. 2. Transduction mechanisms at visible through IR frequencies are based primarily on irradiance detection. Other properties of EM wavefronts, such as coherence state, complex wavefront (including phase), spectral distribution, or state of polarization often carry useful information about a scene. New understanding of wave - matter interaction could lead to the direct transduction of these properties into an output signal, and enable revolutionary new sensing architectures. Alternatively, one could use irradiance sensors that have auxiliary structures integrated into them to map these properties of the EM wavefront into irradiance. Specific examples of such sensors are Angle Sensing Photodetectors or detectors with built-in wire grid polarizers for measuring the state of polarization. Such integrated sensor structures, when combined with dynamic front end optical elements and post-processing, can result in flexible multi-modal sensors for efficient extraction of task-relevant information from EM radiation. 3. Conventional designs for high resolution, wide field-of-view imaging systems are bulky and complex. It is desirable to establish lower bounds on the size and complexity of front end optics as a function of information extracted from the incident EM radiation. It is important that the analysis take into account substantial amount of prior information that is available to the sensing system as a result of scene and target models and the context provided by other sensing modalities. Furthermore, the specific task for which the sensor system is deployed (navigation, targeting, situational awareness) determines which information is relevant. For example, in obstacle avoidance sensors, the detailed information about the obstacle may be irrelevant, while its location and size are critical. A theoretical framework to analyze total resource requirements for such task-specific sensors is also of value to identify research directions for maximum payoff and points of diminishing return. 4. Most scene characterization systems consist of traditional imaging sensors, which may be augmented by spectral and polarization measurement subsystems. Such systems, being main stream, have the advantage of well-developed concepts and technologies for processing and exploitation, but they also generate a large quantity of data, much of it superfluous. The operational characteristics of such systems are often fixed at design and manufacturing time with only minor changes (focus, pan, tilt and zoom) possible by using mechanical movements (gimbals, motors, scanning mirrors). We seek radically different concepts in scene characterization systems that can be readily adapted to specific environments as well tasks in order to minimize resources without sacrificing performance. Such systems can be called Field Programmable Sensing Systems (FPSS). Concepts that lead to a framework for designing and fabricating such systems are one of the desired outcomes of this research announcement. We wish to emphasize that the specific examples outlined above should be viewed as illustrative and not as an exhaustive list of topics of interest and should not limit the scope of the research proposed.

Who can apply

• Unrestricted

Contact

CASEY ROSS <br/>Contract Specialist <br/>Phone 703-696-7826
CASEY.W.ROSS@navy.mil