Dual band infrared picture-in-picture systems

Dual band infrared focal plane arrays (FPA) are designed to act as two independent focal planes located at a common image plane which detects both the mid-wave infrared and the long-wave infrared images. The imagery produced is simultaneous and separable for the two bands. Systems utilizing these focal planes have often been designed to operate the same way as single band infrared sensors, except that two images of the same scene but different spectral bands are simultaneously captured, and displayed independently or as a fused image. An alternative method of exploiting dual band FPA is to utilize the dual band nature of the focal plane to simultaneously view different scenes. It is feasible to provide a picture-in-picture capability where one spectral band views a narrow field of view (FOV) to identify targets while the other spectral band images the wide FOV to provide situational awareness. We explore this capability, including design concepts and issues associated with the development of a dual band picture-in-picture infrared system.