Achieving Wide Field of View Using Double-Mirror Catadioptric Sensors

Abstract

For many applications such as surveillance, medical imaging, photography and robot navigation, it is required that the camera have a wide field of view. Traditional approaches to solve this problem include using a rotating camera, stitching images, complex lenses or multiple cameras. We are proposing a catadioptric sensor with a camera-mirror pair for enhancing the field of view. Devices consisting of a reflective surface (catoptrics) and a camera (dioptrics) are called catadioptric sensors. Our single viewpoint double-mirror system formed of a conical mirror coupled with a proper secondary mirror arises as a solution to a nonlinear first order ordinary differential equation. The ordinary differential equations are obtained as geometric solutions to the problem. Our system is designed to image a plane at infinity, without distortion, requiring no digital unwarping. In this work, we are analyzing the family of cones and corresponding secondary mirrors to obtain a correct image and a large field of view.