Patent — available for licensing
Multi-Edge Slant Target for Non-Localized MTF Measurement
A NASA invention available to explore as a licensing opportunity.
About this technology
Overview
High-speed flight, whether by spacecraft, launch vehicles, or hypersonic aircraft, subjects vehicles to extreme thermal, aerodynamic, and structural loads. To refine predictive models and drive improved designs, NASA’s Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imagery (SCIFLI) team develops and operates advanced airborne imaging systems that collect high-resolution, multispectral imagery of these flights. Characterizing imager performance is critical to ensuring spatially accurate data is collected. The Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) is a key metric for understanding the quantitative spatial performance (i.e. sharpness and image resolution) of high-precision imaging systems. Conventional slanted-edge MTF targets, however, capture only localized MTF measurements (at the center of the focal plane) or are designed only for the visible light spectrum. Thus, they overlook sharpness variations toward the corners of the focal-plane array and/or have little utility for imaging wavelengths longer than near-infrared. NASA’s new Multi-edge MTF Slant Target provides a solution that fills these gaps. Developed by innovators from NASA Langley Research Center’s SCIFLI team, the target’s array of precisely oriented edges magnified under a large focal length lens span the entire field of view of the sensor, providing global MTF measurements from corner to corner. Materials selection and illumination strategy render the target suitable for measurements from the UV-VIS to MWIR spectra.