Study On The Sparse Aperture Optical Systems

The space-borne remote sensor of high resolution is necessary for the development of modem space technology. High resolution should be obtained by an optical system with a large aperture and a long focus. But limited by the optical material, cost, volume and weight of a monolithic mirror, a large filled-aperture system is very difficult to be manufactured and launched into orbit People have begun to seek new theories and approaches to resolve the above problems. The sparse aperture imaging system is one of the most challenging approaches for the realization of large aperture space-borne optical systems. And the exploration of it will carve out a new way to develop the space-borne remote sensor of high resolution.Based on the imaging principle of sparse aperture systems, this dissertation addresses to study the aperture configurations and the image recovering of sparse aperture systems. A novel sparse-aperture design named dual three sub-apertures, which is composed of nine sub-apertures, is proposed. The simulating experiment of the sparse aperture system of Golay3 is carried out.The issue studied in this dissertation is put forward at first. History, state-of-art and the significance of the sparse aperture optical imaging systems are introduced. Then, the principle, the typical configurations and the characteristics of the systems are described. Modulation Transfer Functions (MTFs) of these systems are studied. It is shown that MTFs of the systems are related to the array configurations of sparse apertures. The expressions of the systems' MTFs are achieved. The MTFs and imaging simulations for different kinds of sparse aperture configurations are analyzed by way of an optical design software. Furthermore, the methods adapted to the evaluation of the imaging quality of sparse aperture optical systems...