Novel zoom objective with deformable mirrors
An small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) circles above the ground, capturing the typical green of a coniferous forest or the radiated heat from a town. The objectives in its on-board measuring equipment must function free of chromatic aberration across a wide spectral range - from the ultraviolet region through the visible band and right up to the near and medium infrared range. In such a scenario, conventional lens systems comprised of several lens elements are of limited use: when required to image a wide spectral range, the image quality drops - the image suffers from colour fringing and becomes blurred. Traditionally, specific lenses have been used for each different spectral band. However, the difficulty is that UAVs can only carry a limited amount of weight...