MINIMIZING STRUCTURAL JITTER IN OPTICAL SENSOR SYSTEMS USING PARAMETRIC DYNAMIC RESPONSE OPTIMIZATION

Deployed in manned and unmanned aircraft, military and commercial ground vehicles, and security and monitoring systems, optical sensor systems are ubiquitous. Developing an optical sensor system includes calculating image motion due to structural dynamics—hereafter, “structural jitter”—and adjusting system design to reduce structural jitter and meet requirements. The current process for adjusting the structural design to reduce structural jitter is manual, labor intensive, and driven mostly by engineering judgment. This paper proposes a well-defined optimization process that provides a more explicit approach to the structural design and likely will reduce labor as the process matures. This project focuses on employing dynamic response optimization to minimize structural jitter caused by random vibration. Investigation of the literature has also shown that performing this optimization during the design phase of an optical path-supporting structure has not been documented previously. This dissertation details the optimization process so that researchers and designers may implement it in their efforts to improve image quality in sensor systems.