Optical and radiometry analysis for a passive infrared sparse sensor detection system

A new application of a sparse sensor detection system is being developed to monitor human movement that is inexpensive, and has both low bandwidth and power requirements. The optical and radiometric performance of a sparse sensor system is modeled. Such a system, due to its intended low cost, is analyzed using single element spherical, off-the-shelf optical components. An analysis is performed using room temperature lead selenide photoconductive sensors having a standardized detectivity ( D*) of 2 x 1010 cm(Hz)1/2W-1. Our analysis will consider two areas: (1) the effects of target size, distance, and system focal length combinations on the sensor size at the focal plane, and (2) the radiometric calculations required to determine the signal-to-noise ratio.