Bodkin Design & Engineering, LLC (BD&E) has been awarded a Phase I SBIR contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop a switchable polarising camera element.
This device has the capability of switching from high-resolution IR imaging mode to a Polarimetric IR imaging mode when retrofitted to an IR camera. Surveillance using a polarization sensitive camera can improve the detection of targets under tree canopy, in camouflage and in cluttered environments.
Polarimetric imaging is useful in separating man-made objects, such as vehicles and buildings, from clutter in a reconnaissance scene. Flat surfaces on these objects partially polarize both reflected light and thermally emitted radiation. Current technology either uses multiple cameras with multiple filters or a single camera with time multiplexing. Multiple filters yield high resolution polarimetric images of the scene but results in large and expensive systems. Time multiplexing yields high resolution imagery but at a slower data rate and can suffer from temporal artifacts.
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