AIRS FPA applied to the MIRIADS: Powerful infrared systems applications

Raytheon’s Infrared Operations (RIO) has invented and developed a new type of focal plane array with “Image Processing on-the-chip” named the Adaptive IR Sensor (AIRS). The AIRS FPA is based upon the human retina in that it performs signal processing near the photoreceptors. The AIRS FPA has been reduced to practice and adaptively removes detector and optic temperature drift and 1/f induced fixed pattern noise. This 3-generation multi-mode IRFPA, also called a Smart FPA, is a 256x256-array format capable of operation in four modes: 1) Direct Injection (DI), 2) Adaptive Non-uniformity Correction (NUC), 3) Motion/Edge Detection, and 4) Subframe Averaging. Nova Research has developed a Modular IR Application Development System (MIRIADS) which is a compact single board camera system that is highly integrated with the dewar assembly. The MIRIADS system coupled with the AIRS Smart FPA results in a very high performance wide field of view IR Sensor and processing system with integrated in one of the smallest packages to date.