Abstract

We present the optical design and experimental verification of resolving performance of a 3× long wavelength infrared (LWIR) zoom camera for drones. The effective focal length of the system varies from 24.5 mm at the wide angle position to 75.1 mm at the telephoto position. The design specifications of the system were derived from ground resolved distance (GRD) to recognize 3 m × 6 m target at a distance of 1 km, at the telephoto position. To satisfy the system requirement, the aperture (f-number) of the system is taken as F/1.6 and the final modulation transfer function (MTF) should be higher than 0.1 (10%). The measured MTF in the laboratory was 0.127 (12.7%), exceeds the system requirement. Outdoor targets were used to verify the comprehensive performance of the system. The system resolved 4-bar targets corresponding to the spatial resolution at the distance of 1 km, 1.4 km and 2 km.

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