Automated testing of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared sensors using shared optics

Complex systems ranging from unmanned vehicles to night vision goggles rely on a various spectral regions to achieve the demanding imaging performance they require. The lines between infrared, visible, and ultraviolet are quickly blurring as multi-sensor systems become more sophisticated and image fusion becomes commonplace. Typically sensor testing requires hardware and software exclusively designed for the spectral region of interest. Thus a system with ultraviolet through infrared imaging capabilities could require up to three separate test benches for sensor characterization. This not only drives up the cost of testing but also leads to a discontinuity of methods and possibly skewed results. This paper will discuss hardware and software developed by the authors that utilize identical test methods and shared optics to complete infrared, visible, and ultraviolet sensor performance analysis. Challenges encompassing multiple source switching and combining will be addressed along with design choices related to specifying optics and targets of sufficient quality and construction to provide performance to cover the full spectral region. Test methodology controlled by a single software suite will be summarized including modulation transfer function, signal to noise ratio, uniformity, focus, distortion, intrascene dynamic range, and sensitivity. Examples of results obtained by these test systems will be presented.