LWIR compressive sensing hyperspectral sensor for chemical plume imaging

A compressive sensing hyperspectral imaging (CS-HSI) platform has been developed for low-cost, standoff, wide area Early Warning of chemical vapor plumes. The sensor, operating in the longwave infrared (LWIR) spectral range with a single-pixel architecture, simultaneously addresses two practical shortcomings of LWIR chemical plume imaging platforms: (1) the single pixel architecture enables an order of magnitude cost reduction relative to HSI sensors employing a cooled focal plane array or high-speed gimbaled scanner, and (2) the inherent imaging modality achieves a favorable pixel fill factor and associated probability of detection for relevant chemical threats relative to single pixel scanned sensors. The CS-HSI employs a low-cost digital micromirror device modified for use in the LWIR spectral range to spatially encode an image of the scene. An LWIR spectrometer employing a tunable Fabry-Perot filter and a mercury cadmium telluride single element photo-detector spectrally resolves the spatially integrated image while mitigating instrument radiance. A CS processing module reconstructs the spatially compressed hyperspectral image where the measurement and sparsity basis functions are specifically tailored to the CS-HSI hardware and chemical plume imaging. An automated target recognition algorithm is applied to the reconstructed hyperspectral data employing a variant of the Adaptive Cosine Estimator for the detection of the chemical plumes in cluttered and dynamic backgrounds. The development, characterization, and a series of capability demonstrations of a prototype CS-HSI sensor are presented. Capability demonstrations include chemical plume imaging of R-134 at mission-relevant concentration pathlength product levels in a laboratory setting.