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