Abstract

Increased interest in the performance of IR sensors based on airborne platforms was a main driver for the measurements of atmospheric radiance conducted under the auspices of the Kuiper Infrared Technology Experiment in 1985-1986. In an ideal IR airborne sensor, the noise contributions from the detector(s), the signal processing electronics, the analog to digital converters), and the data storage mechanism would all be smaller than the statistical fluctuations in the incoming photon stream. The intrinsic limit set by the counting statistics of the photons from the atmosphere through which the sensor looks is referred to as BLIP, or background limited performance. (In rare cases the target may be bright enough to be the major source of photons, but we will not consider that case here.) In practice, the background from the light collecting mechanism (usually a telescope and some number of flat mirrors, beamsplitters, and at least one window) contributes as much or more "background" than the atmosphere, and thus represents the source of a sensitive sensor’s performance limit. In order to assess the relative contributions from the platform, the sensor, and the sky, the KITE project undertook a few flights over the continental US and more than 30 over Kwajalein in 1986. This report discusses some of the results of the analysis of the data from that project.

© 1990 Optical Society of America