Demonstration of 136 dB dynamic range capability for a simultaneous dual optical band CAOS camera

For the first time, proposed and demonstrated is a simultaneous dual optical band coded access optical sensor (CAOS) camera design suited for extreme contrast multispectral bright target scenarios. Deploying a digital micromirror devices (DMDs)-based time-frequency agile pixels CAOS-mode within a two point detector spatially and spectrally isolating framework, this imager simultaneously and independently detects pixel selective image information for two different broad spectral bands that further undergo independent spectral image data extraction via finer-tuned wavelength filtering using all-optical or CAOS-mode electronic filters. A proof-of-concept visible-near infrared band CAOS imager is successfully demonstrated using a target scene containing LEDs and engaging narrowband optical filters. In addition, using the CAOS-mode, demonstrated is the RF domain simultaneous color content monitoring of a white light LED image pixel. Also proposed is the use of a higher bit count analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with both range and sampling duration parameter control along with a larger data set electronic DSP to extract higher DSP gain and realize additional noise suppression. Using a 16-bit ADC and 2,097,152 point fast Fourier transform (FFT) digital signal processing (DSP) for a 633 nm laser engaged test target scene that is subject to nearly 7 decades (10⁷) of gradual optical attenuation, the experimental camera demonstrates an agile pixel extreme dynamic range of 136 dB, which is a 56 dB improvement over the previous CAOS-imaging demonstrations.