Imaging sensors are a crucial component of modern defense. The ideal sensor has acute visual sensing capabilities and communicates instantly when threats are identified. It should also have night vision capabilities and cover a broadband spectral range including near ultraviolet and infrared. A robotic broadband night vision camera is highly desirable. Such a robotic broadband low-light-level camera is feasible today. We propose to integrate a broadband semiconductor image intensifier with night vision sensitivity with a commercial-off-the-shelf camera cellular phone, and modify the cell phone circuitry and program it with image recognition and compression algorithms developed by Galaxy Scientific, whose image compression products have been installed on United States Navy 3rd Fleet and seen action in the Persian Gulf in support of Middle Eastern military campaign. Such an autonomous system will combine night vision sensitivities and the broadband ultra-violet, visible and near infrared coverage over 200 - 1650 nm with the light weight, small size and low cost of the commercial camera cell phone. Phase I will see the proof of concept. Phase II will see the integration of the proposed camera into a robotic image requisition, recognition, compression and transmission system for evaluation at DoD laboratories.
Keywords: Remote Target Identification And Ranging, Focal Plane Array, Image Recognition, Image Compression, Semiconductor Image Intensifier, Night Vision, Infrared Imaging
