Patent ID: 11936991
Assignee: RAYTHEON COMPANY
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  G | IPC G  H

Claim 17:
18. A method of preventing saturation of an imaging detector in an EO/IR optical imaging system, said system including collection optics that collect light that is passed to image forming optics that focus the light onto an imaging detector that integrates the incident light over a frame time and reads out images at a frame rate, said imaging detector having a saturation threshold, said method comprising:
positioning a Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) Micro-Mirror Array (MMA) in a collimated or near-collimated space between the collection optics and the image forming optics, said MMA comprising a plurality of independently controllable mirrors, each said mirror responsive to command signals to tilt in at least one degree-of freedom (DOF);
sampling the collimated or near-collimated light multiple times per image frame;
responsive to the sampled light, updating the command signals multiple times per image frame to tilt a percentage of the mirrors to re-direct light incident on those mirrors to a light dump and to tilt the remaining mirrors to re-direct light incident on those mirrors to the image forming optics to form the image on the imaging detector whereby together the mirrors adjust a fraction of light reaching the imaging detector such that the integrated incident light for a given image frame is less than the saturation threshold.