MIPS Project Detail:

Tarsier Optics, Inc.

Quantum noise spectrum filter for Quantum Camera

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Company

Tarsier Optics, Inc.

Baltimore

Baltimore City

County

, Maryland

Founded:

2015

Website:

http://www.tarsieroptics.com

Company Description:

Tarsier Optics is developing a novel camera system that provides ‘panoramic’ photographs that can resolve micron-level structures at distances of ten miles, independent of the optics. Ultimately, cell phone-like lenses can be used, creating highvalue products in the defense and commercial remote sensing markets, as well as highend consumer segments. Tarsier’s prototype uses “photon counting” and “coincidence counting” measurement devices to capture the data.

MIPS Project

Quantum noise spectrum filter for Quantum Camera

Project #

5809

|

MIPS Round

58 |

Starting Date:

Aug 2016

MIPS Project Challenge:
One of the crucial parts of this camera system is a spectrum filter, which restricts the measured “noise” to a necessary narrow bandwidth. The goal of this MIPS project was to design an innovative quantum noise spectrum filter that will improve the signalto- noise ratio by orders of magnitude.

Project Scope:
Through this MIPS project, researchers: 1.) designed and built an analog/digital quantum spectrum filter; 2.) developed the necessary hardware and software for interfacing the quantum noise spectrum filter with the other parts of the PNFC circuit; 3.) interfaced the quantum noise spectrum filter with the prototype Tarsier camera; and 4.) tested the Tarsier prototype, turbulence-free CCD camera with the innovated quantum noise spectrum filter.

Because of the MIPS work, we have a fully functional camera that demonstrates all the capabilities we had hoped for. This has enabled us to provide a meaningful value proposition to our customers.

Ken Malone, Board Chairman, Tarsier Optics

Results:

In October, 2016, Tarsier received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $225,000 to develop a turbulence-free imaging system. In July, 2016, Tarsier received a Maryland Innovation Initiative award.

Tarsier has two full-time employees.

Additional Information:
Tarsier Optics has obtained an exclusive license from UMBC for the patent portfolio covering its camera technology. The inventor was Yanhua Shih.

Competing technologies either use the zoom lenses or try to sharpen images by averaging over frames. The limitation of taking a photograph with a zoom lens is that air turbulence negatively impacts resolution, not the size of the lens. Tarsier will provide a higher-resolution image than a zoom lens, while at the same time not limiting the width of the image to the narrow cone provided by a zoom lens. Using the averaging frames technology is effective at overcoming “camera noise” and other consistent signal disruptions, but does not overcome chaotic turbulence.

Tarsier’s camera finds signal in what is typically perceived to be noise, thus producing high resolution images with the same amount of information currently available to a CCD. Tarsier’s camera creates a single image out of two CCD’s; the novelty lies in how the images are combined. Operationally, the same image, with the same optics, needs to be measured by two CCD’s with a large, angular light source, such as the sun. One CCD captures the image in the same way as a typical camera. The second CCD measures a Fourier transform of the same field of view. Post-processing combines these two data sets or images to output a processed image with a far higher resolution than the optics could have achieved alone.