[OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 3, No. 6A (1996) 429-432]

Aberration Invariant Optical/Digital Incoherent Systems

Edward R. DOWSKI, Jr., W. Thomas CATHEY and Sara C. BRADBURN

Imaging Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

(Received May 9, 1996; Accepted September 30, 1996)

We have developed a fundamental technique for control of important known and unknown lens aberrations. Control of lens aberrations through traditional means is very difficult in high-performance optical systems. Minimizing aberrations caused by deterministic design errors as well as statistical fabrication errors has often led to costly systems and fabrication techniques. By employing a special-purpose optical phase mask and digital signal processing we can form imaging systems that are invariant, or substantially insensitive, to a number of important lens aberrations.

Key words: wavefront coding, aberrations, optical/digital systems, imaging systems, incoherent imaging

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