The Active EO Sensing branch is investigating the full range of optical imaging and photonic technologies to support remote sensing applications for the Air Force.

(1) Novel optical sensing - Imaging and non-imaging techniques suitable for detecting, characterizing, and tracking small objects (limited spatial sampling/resolution) are being investigated.  Also includes quantum inspired sensing, quantum illumination, and lidar tomography for detecting, characterizing, and tracking small objects.

(2) Fiber laser development - Explore the development of solid core and hollow core fibers for agile and efficient lasers for use in lidar sensors.  Laser transmitters with agile wavelength capabilities in excess of 1400 nm and with waveform agility are desirable. Such transmitters can be used for multiple imaging modes. Highly sensitive receivers in this wavelength region are also desired. Full waveform reception and processing are of interest.

(3) Coherent imaging and aperture synthesis - Investigate revolutionary computational imaging approaches, including phase retrieval and decompressive inference algorithms and extend these systems to enable machine learning-based control and image estimation from emerging synthetic aperture systems leveraging neural estimators.  Use these techniques to design and evaluate the next-generation of synthetic aperture lidar sensors for remote sensing.

(4) Agile Photonic Technologies - Investigates novel photonic and optical materials and technologies for beam shaping and beam steering, including liquid crystal devices, metaoptics, spatial light modulators, and fast steering mirrors.