John Franks

Low-cost far infrared bolometer camera for automotive use

A new low-cost long-wavelength infrared bolometer camera system is under development. It is designed for use with an automatic vision algorithm system as a sensor to detect vulnerable road users in traffic. Looking 15 m in front of the vehicle it can in case of an unavoidable impact activate a brake assist system or other deployable protection system. To achieve our cost target below €100 for the sensor system we evaluate the required performance and can reduce the sensitivity to 150 mK and pixel resolution to 80 x 30. We address all the main cost drivers as sensor size and production yield along with vacuum packaging, optical components and large volume manufacturing technologies. The detector array is based on a new type of high performance thermistor material. Very thin Si/SiGe single crystal multi-layers are grown epitaxially. Due to the resulting valence barriers a high temperature coefficient of resistance is achieved (3.3%/K). Simultaneously, the high quality crystalline material provides very low 1/f-noise characteristics and uniform material properties. The thermistor material is transferred from the original substrate wafer to the read-out circuit using adhesive wafer bonding and subsequent thinning. Bolometer arrays can then be fabricated using industry standard MEMS process and materials. The inherently good detector performance allows us to reduce the vacuum requirement and we can implement wafer level vacuum packaging technology used in established automotive sensor fabrication. The optical design is reduced to a single lens camera. We develop a low cost molding process using a novel chalcogenide glass (GASIR®3) and integrate anti-reflective and anti-erosion properties using diamond like carbon coating.

Fulfilling the pedestrian protection directive using a long-wavelength infrared camera designed to meet both performance and cost targets

Pedestrian fatalities are around 15% of the traffic fatalities in Europe. A proposed EU regulation requires the automotive industry to develop technologies that will substantially decrease the risk for Vulnerable Road Users when hit by a vehicle. Automatic Brake Assist systems, activated by a suitable sensor, will reduce the speed of the vehicle before the impact, independent of any driver interaction. Long Wavelength Infrared technology is an ideal candidate for such sensors, but requires a significant cost reduction. The target necessary for automotive serial applications are well below the cost of systems available today. Uncooled bolometer arrays are the most mature technology for Long Wave Infrared with low-cost potential. Analyses show that sensor size and production yield along with vacuum packaging and the optical components are the main cost drivers. A project has been started to design a new Long Wave Infrared system with a ten times cost reduction potential, optimized for the pedestrian protection requirement. It will take advantage of the progress in Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems and Long Wave Infrared optics to keep the cost down. Deployable and pre-impact braking systems can become effective alternatives to passive impact protection systems solutions fulfilling the EU pedestrian protection regulation. Low-cost Long Wave Infrared sensors will be an important enabler to make such systems cost competitive, allowing high market penetration.

Sensor fusion to enable next generation low cost Night Vision systems

The next generation of automotive Night Vision Enhancement systems offers automatic pedestrian recognition with a performance beyond current Night Vision systems at a lower cost. This will allow high market penetration, covering the luxury as well as compact car segments. Improved performance can be achieved by fusing a Far Infrared (FIR) sensor with a Near Infrared (NIR) sensor. However, fusing with todays FIR systems will be too costly to get a high market penetration. The main cost drivers of the FIR system are its resolution and its sensitivity. Sensor cost is largely determined by sensor die size. Fewer and smaller pixels will reduce die size but also resolution and sensitivity. Sensitivity limits are mainly determined by inclement weather performance. Sensitivity requirements should be matched to the possibilities of low cost FIR optics, especially implications of molding of highly complex optical surfaces. As a FIR sensor specified for fusion can have lower resolution as well as lower sensitivity, fusing FIR and NIR can solve performance and cost problems. To allow compensation of FIR-sensor degradation on the pedestrian detection capabilities, a fusion approach called MultiSensorBoosting is presented that produces a classifier holding highly discriminative sub-pixel features from both sensors at once. The algorithm is applied on data with different resolution and on data obtained from cameras with varying optics to incorporate various sensor sensitivities. As it is not feasible to record representative data with all different sensor configurations, transformation routines on existing high resolution data recorded with high sensitivity cameras are investigated in order to determine the effects of lower resolution and lower sensitivity to the overall detection performance. This paper also gives an overview of the first results showing that a reduction of FIR sensor resolution can be compensated using fusion techniques and a reduction of sensitivity can be compensated.

Comparison of performances between GASIR molded optics and existing IR optics

Umicore IR Glass has developed an industrial process to manufacture low cost chalcogenide glasses with well controlled properties. These materials called GASIR 1 and GASIR 2 are transparent in the 3-5 and 8-12 μm atmospheric windows allowing a great range of applications in thermal imaging. A high precision industrial moulding process has been developed and set up allowing to mould GASIR material directly into high quality finished spherical, aspherical and diffractive lenses. This process is especially attractive for medium and high volume applications. Specific antireflection coatings have also been developed offering a maximum transmission of 98% when coated with high efficiency coating. Several optics from 17.5 mm F/1 to 100 mm F/1.25 focal length based on existing germanium optics have been redesigned especially for GASIR 1 and GASIR 2 glasses. The lenses have been manufactured using Umicore’s moulding technology. These chalcogenide moulded optics are used in various applications like imaging, process control, military applications and their performances (modulation transfer function has been measured) are reviewed and compared to the existing solutions made of traditional IR optics.

Moulded infrared optics making night vision for cars within reach

Sustainable mobility is a major public concern, making increased safety one of the major challenges for the car of the future. About half of all serious traffic accidents occur at night, while only a minority of journeys is at night. Reduced visibility is one of the main reasons for these striking statistics and this explains the interest of the automobile industry in Enhanced Night Vision Systems. As an answer to the need for high volume, low cost optics for these applications, Umicore has developed GASIR. This material is transparent in the NEAR and FAR infrared, and is mouldable into high quality finished spherical, aspherical and diffractive lenses. Umicores GASIR moulded lenses are an ideal solution for thermal imaging for cars (Night Vision) and for sensing systems like pedestrian detection, collision avoidance, occupation detection, intelligent airbag systems etc.

Passive athermalization of two-lens designs in 8-12micron waveband

Passive athermalization has become a key-technology for automotive and other outdoor applications using modern uncooled 25 and 17 micron bolometer arrays. For high volume applications, passive athermalized optical designs with only two lenses reduce costs. A two lens solution requires a careful choice of lens and housing materials. A first order approach to thermal drift uses the RAYLEIGH criteria for depth of focus. It can be seen that narrow field of view lenses are the most sensitive to defocus with temperature. The different methods used to achieve stable performance over the required Temperature Range can be compared, namely passive optical athermalization and passive mechanical athermalization. GASIR® possesses inherent properties enabling optical passive athermalization. High resolution, two element designs for different field angles are presented. Each lens category is present: Super Wide Angle, Wide Angle, Standard, Tele and Super Tele. All examples are designed for 17micron VGA-detectors. These designs use aspheres and diffractive structures. The impact of temperature on all these parameters can only be determined by ray tracing. The proposed metric is the average of the tangential and sagittal MTF versus image height at Nyquist frequency. A very nonlinear impact of temperature on MTFA at different image heights is clearly visible. Examples are shown. An MTF based criteria for judging athermalization is proposed. It contains two values: the admissible MTF-drop ▵MTF in % and the resulting Temperature Range ▵T in Kelvin. The procedure to get these values is demonstrated. Values of 9 lens assemblies are listed. A comparison with results of first order approach shows limitations of this approach. A general quantification of athermalization is proposed. The pair of values (▵MTF, ▵T) is independent of other lens indexes. The limitations of this method are discussed.

Umicore opens new era in IR moulded optics by opening the first high volume facility

Umicore IR Glass has developed an industrial process to manufacture low cost chalcogenide glasses with well controlled properties. These materials called GASIR® 1 and GASIR® 2 are transparent in the 3-5 and 8-12 μm atmospheric windows allowing a great range of applications in thermal imaging. In the past two years, several optics based on Germanium existing optics (60 mm and 100 mm) have been redesigned for GASIR® glass and are now produced as standards in medium volume series. This year Umicore is passing another step in the production of infrared moulded optics by opening the first high volume factory entirely dedicated to GASIR® optics for driving vision enhancement (DVE). This new facility will have a capacity of several tens of thousands of optics per year. In this article, the first results of performance of the corresponding optics will also be presented.

Challenges, constraints and results of lens design in 8-12micron waveband for bolometer-FPAs having a pixel pitch 12micron

In the 8-12 micron waveband Focal Plane Arrays (FPA) are available with a pixel pitch of 12 microns or less. High resolution FPAs with VGA, XGA and SXGA resolution should become available at a reasonable price. These will require new lens designs to give the required fields of view. The challenge for the Optical Designer is to design lenses when the pixel pitch of the detector is the same as the wavelength of the light imaged. The lens specification will need to give more thought to the resolution required by the system. A smaller pixel pitch detector defines a requirement for a shorter focal length to give the same field of view. This will have a number of effects upon the lens design. Geometrical aberrations decrease proportionally with the focal length. Reverse telephoto layouts will become more common, particularly when the system has a shutter. The increase in pixel count will require wide field of view lenses which present particular challenges. The impact of diffraction effects on the lens design is considerably increased. The fast F-number causes an increase in the diffraction limit of the system, but also increases geometric aberrations by a cube law. Therefore the balance between the diffraction limited and the aberration limited performance becomes more difficult. The first approach of the designer is to re-use proven designs originally intended for use with 17micron detectors. Some of these designs will have adequate performance at the Nyquist limit of the 12 micron detectors. Even smaller detector pitches, such as 10 micron, will demand new approaches to Infra Red lens design. The traditional approach will quickly increase the number of elements to 3 or even more. This could lead to the lenses with medium fields of view driving the system cost. A close cooperation between the camera developer and lens designer will become necessary in order to explore alternate approaches, such as wavefront coding, in order to reach the most cost effective solution.

Two-lens designs for modern uncooled and cooled IR imaging devices

In recent years, thermal detectors with a 17 μm pixel pitch have become well-established for use in various applications, such as thermal imaging in cars. This has allowed the civilian infrared market to steadily mature. The main cost for these lens designs comes from the number of lenses used. The development of thermal detectors, which are less sensitive than quantum detectors, has compelled camera manufacturers to demand very fast F-numbers such as f/1.2 or faster. This also minimizes the impact of diffraction in the 8-12 μmm waveband. The freedom afforded by the choice of the stop position in these designs has been used to create high-resolution lenses that operate near the diffraction limit. Based on GASIR®1, a chalcogenide glass, two-lens designs have been developed for all pixel counts and fields of view. Additionally, all these designs have been passively athermalized, either optically or mechanically. Lenses for cooled quantum detectors have a defined stop position called the cold stop (CS) near the FPA-plane. The solid angle defined by the CS fixes not only the F-number (which is less fast than for thermal detectors), but determines also the required resolution. The main cost driver of these designs is the lens diameter. Lenses must be sufficiently large to avoid any vignetting of ray bundles intended to reach the cooled detector. This paper studies the transfer of approved lens design principles for thermal detectors to lenses for cooled quantum detectors with CS for same pixel count at three horizontal fields of view: a 28° medium field lens, an 8° narrow field lens, and a 90° wide field lens. The lens arrangements found for each category have similar lens costs.

Challenges, constraints, and results of lens design for 17 micron-bolometer focal plane arrays in 8-12 micron waveband

In the 8-12 micron waveband Focal Plane Arrays (FPA) are available with a 17 micron pixel pitch in different arrays sizes (e.g. 512 x 480 pixels and 320 x 240 pixels) and with excellent electrical properties. Many applications become possible using this new type of IR-detector which will become the future standard in uncooled technology. Lenses with an f-number faster than f/1.5 minimize the diffraction impact on the spatial resolution and guarantee a high thermal resolution for uncooled cameras. Both effects will be quantified. The distinction between Traditional f-number (TF) and Radiometric f-number (RF) is discussed. Lenses with different focal lengths are required for applications in a variety of markets. They are classified by their Horizontal field of view (HFOV). Respecting the requirements for high volume markets, several two lens solutions will be discussed. A commonly accepted parameter of spatial resolution is the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF)-value at the Nyquist frequency of the detector (here 30cy/mm). This parameter of resolution will be presented versus field of view. Wide Angle and Super Wide Angle lenses are susceptible to low relative illumination in the corner of the detector. Measures to reduce this drop to an acceptable value are presented.