Patent — available for licensing
Reflection-Reducing Imaging System for Machine Vision Applications
A NASA invention available to explore as a licensing opportunity.
About this technology
Overview
NASA researchers have developed a compact, cost-effective imaging system using a co-linear, high-intensity LED illumination unit to minimize window reflections for background-oriented schlieren (BOS) and machine vision measurements. The imaging system – tested in NASA wind tunnels – can reduce or eliminate shadows that occur when using many existing BOS and photogrammetric measurement systems; these shadows occur in existing systems for a variety of reasons, including the severe back-reflections from wind tunnel viewing port windows and variations in the refractive index of the imaged volume. Due to its compact size, the system can easily fit in the space behind a typical wind tunnel’s view port. As a cost-effective, compact imaging system, NASA’s technology could be deployed for use in BOS, Tomo BOS, photogrammetric, and general machine vision applications.