Feasibility study of Fresnel lens use in compact thermal IR imager - OUFTI-NEXT

Abstract

Compact and efficient lens system is required to develop a camera in a Cubesat format. Solutions exist based on Fresnel lenses which are thinner and lighter than conventional refractive lenses. In a frame of this master thesis, the goal is to survey the capabilities of this exotic lens design and perform a trade-off with feasibility assessment based on the OUFTI-Next requirements. Mission of OUFTI-Next is to perform observation of irrigated fields, measuring the surface temperature in the MWIR window. Different optical solution from singlet to refractive triplet are present in this work. One of them chosen as good candidate for the thermal imaging system of Oufti-Next.