Active Vibration Control for Imaging Systems

Project goal: To design an active vibration control system using inertial measurement units to detect motion changes of the camera. Active vibration control is designed to remove the small pixel blurs on the detector of a camera system when imaging an object. When the system is mounted on a vehicle and a camera is imaging an object far away, image blur is more likely because sensitivity increases with distance. Conventional active vibration control systems use passive gyroscopic means to eliminate the imaging errors. The inertial measurement unit sends binary code to a motor-control unit, and a control loop algorithm pushes commands to the three individual motors. A fabricated three-axis gimbal is used to mechanically account for image stabilization. The camera itself allows for some built-in optical image stabilization, and the inertial measurement units facilitate an electronic approach to mitigate vibrational errors in the system. The active vibration control system mounted on an unmanned aircraft will correct for pitch, yaw and roll to allow imaging of an object 300 meters away with a standard digital camera.