Patent ID: 9372115
Filing Date: 2016-06-21
CPC Classification: G01J

Claim Text:
1. An airborne hyperspectral scanning system with a reflective telecentric relay comprises: a fore-optics, the fore-optics comprising three mirrors, sequentially ordered, and in optical alignment with each other, the first mirror being configured to collect and reflect electromagnetic radiation, and the third mirror being configured to form an intermediate image from the reflected electromagnetic radiation; an imaging spectrometer, the imaging spectrometer comprising a spectrometer slit, the spectrometer slit having an exit side and an entrance side, a focal plane array, a fold mirror, and at least three spectrometer mirrors, ordered sequentially, and in optical alignment with each other, the primary spectrometer mirror receiving light from the fold mirror, and disposed in operative relation to the exit side of the spectrometer slit, the last spectrometer mirror situated such that it receives the light from the primary spectrometer mirror through at least one intermediate mirror and directing the light to the focal plane array, the one or more intermediate mirrors having diffraction gratings; a reflective telecentric relay, mounted in the housing between the fore-optics and the imaging spectrometer, the reflective telecentric relay comprising a collimator module, a scanning mirror module, and an objective module, the collimator module comprising at least four relay mirrors and the objective module comprising at least three objective mirrors each having an optical power, the objective module being situated to receive an intermediate image from the fore-optics and reflect a collimated beam to the scanning mirror module, the scanning mirror module comprising a scanning mirror and being positioned in a telecentric path between the collimator module and the objective module, and reflecting the intermediate collimated beam to the objective module, wherein the objective module is situated to form a telecentric image at an entrance of the spectrometer slit; and wherein each reflective relay mirror is decentered with respect to each other so that a geometrical axis of each of telecentric relay mirror does not coincide with a chief ray of the beam.