Aural stealth of portable cryogenically cooled infrared imagers

Alexander Veprik; Herman Vilenchik; Ramon Broyde; Nachman Pundak

doi:10.1117/12.665413

18 May 2006 Aural stealth of portable cryogenically cooled infrared imagers

Alexander Veprik, Herman Vilenchik, Ramon Broyde, Nachman Pundak

Proceedings Volume 6206, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXII; 620625 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.665413
Event: Defense and Security Symposium, 2006, Orlando (Kissimmee), Florida, United States

Abstract

Novel tactics for carrying out military and antiterrorist operations calls for the development of a new generation of portable infrared imagers, the focal plane arrays of which are maintained at a cryogenic temperature. The rotary Stirling cryogenic engines providing for this cooling are usually mounted directly upon the light thin-walled imager frame, which is used for optical alignment, mechanical stability and heat sinking. The known disadvantage of this design approach is that the wideband vibration export produced by the cooler results in structural resonances and therefore in excessive noise radiation from the above imagers. The "noisy" thermal imager may be detected from quite a long distance using acoustic equipment relying upon a high-sensitive unidirectional microphone or aurally spotted when used in a close proximity to the opponent force. As a result, aural stealth along with enhanced imagery, compact design, low power consumption and long life-times become a crucial figure of merit characterising the modern infrared imager. Achieving the desired inaudibility level is a challenging task. As a matter of fact, even the best examples of modern "should-be silent" infrared imagers are quite audible from as far as 50 meters away even when operating in a steady-state mode. The authors report on the successful effort of designing the inaudible at greater then 10 meters cryogenically cooled infrared imager complying with the stringent MIL-STD-1774D (Level II) requirements.

Citation Download Citation

Alexander Veprik, Herman Vilenchik, Ramon Broyde, and Nachman Pundak "Aural stealth of portable cryogenically cooled infrared imagers", Proc. SPIE 6206, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXII, 620625 (18 May 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.665413

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available