Patent ID: 7718968
Filing Date: 2010-05-18
Classification: G01J,H04N

Abstract:
1. A detector assembly for imaging a scene over a predetermined temperature range and a predetermined wavelength range including a central wavelength about which the predetermined wavelength range is centered, the detector assembly comprising: an imaging-sensor array configured to detect wavelengths over a predetermined range of electromagnetic wavelengths, the array including a plurality of detector-array sections; a plurality of focusing elements, each focusing element being capable of focusing upon a corresponding one of the plurality of detector-array sections an image of the scene correlating to the image of the scene that each of the other focusing elements is capable of focusing upon the detector-array section corresponding thereto, each focusing element and the detector-array section corresponding thereto defining an associated optical path; and a plurality of optical filtering elements each of which filtering elements is situated within, and optically correlated with, at least one of the optical paths associated with a detector-array section such that electromagnetic energy that passes through that filtering element impinges upon the at least one detector-array section optically correlated with that filtering element; wherein (i) each filtering element is configured to transmit, at a filter-specific maximum intensity, the central wavelength at a filter temperature disparate from the filter temperature at which each filtering element of a selected set of the other filtering elements is configured to transmit the central wavelength and (ii) the transmittance as a function of filter temperature for each filtering element at least partially overlaps the transmittance as a function of filter temperature of at least one other filtering element among the plurality of filtering elements.