Large Field of View Imaging System for Remote Target Capture and Trajectory Measurement Based on Cone Rotation

In the remote target trajectory measurement system, because of the size limitation of the image sensor, the angle of view of the current telephoto camera is very small, which cannot meet the requirements of target acquisition. After comparing the current large-field imaging methods, a scheme of a large field of view (FoV) and high frame rate scanning by controlling the camera to perform conical rotation is proposed, and a 3 × 3 external FoV stitching system that includes the scheme is designed. An experimental prototype was constructed to verify the system. In this paper, the mechanical structure of the prototype, the camera exposure control flow, and the image data processing flow are introduced, and the imaging motion feature of the prototype caused by the camera exposure during conical motion is analyzed. In the experiment, the prototype controlled the camera accurately exposed to the sub-fields. Using a camera with an angle of view of 0.78°, a large angle of view system of 2.23° was obtained by FoV stitching. The system we present is less difficult to implement and has obvious advantages in volume and weight compared to multi-camera arrays. It is suitable for engineering applications in remote target measurement system.