Thermal effects on the image quality of an aerial camera

The TDICCD aerial camera was developed to study the relationship between the structure and optical system. Based on the camera outputs, integrated analysis and experimental methods were proposed. The proposed method was then used to both study and verify the influence of thermal disturbance on the optical performance and optimal aerial camera design. The nodal displacement of the optical surface under thermal disturbance was calculated via the finite element method. The resulting data were fitted to Zernike polynomial coefficients using the Zernike polynomial. Additionally, a method of calculating rigid body displacement was also proposed to determine the effects of rigid optical system displacement. The method calculates the RMS and PV parameters by fitting the surface distortion data. The fitted Zernike polynomial coefficients were input to ZEMAX software to obtain the optical system response. The influence of thermal disturbance on the optical performance of the aerial camera was analyzed. The analysis results have shown that the low-temperature conditions have a more prominent impact on the optical performance of aerial cameras. The radial and axial lens steady-state temperature range was 2.06 °C in conduction temperature of − 40 °C. At the same time, the aerial camera surface was frosted at − 40 °C to carry out the low-temperature experiment, which verified the results obtained for a large temperature difference environment. Finally, results were verified experimentally.