Abstract: This disclosure describes a fabry-perot interferometer array and methods of using it for gas sensing, hyper-spectral imaging, scene projection and optical communications. Processed on a silicon, silicon-on-sapphire, or other substrates with integrated circuits, the array may be sized from one pixel to multi-mega pixels and made to cover the entire ultraviolet (UV) to long wave infrared (LWIR) spectrum, allowing it to be used in many applications. In preferred embodiments, each pixel of the array is a fabry-perot interferometer cavity, sandwiched between two parallel mirrors, whose spacing is changed by moving one of the mirrors relative to the other with a voltage applied across the cavity, tuning it to transmit a waveband with a bandwidth and a central wavelength determined by the mirror reflectivity and the cavity spacing, respectively. Thus, an array of different wavebands may be electrically tuned to transmit from the array.

Abstract: An imaging flame detection system for detecting flames of fires against false alarms using continuous imaging and pattern recognition of infrared (IR) images of a protected area under surveillance by the system. The system uses a Silicon (Si) Charge-Coupled-Device (CCD) array to detect the IR images, which first have passed through a wide field of view lens to establish a wide surveillance of the protected area, and have been filtered by a narrow band IR filter centered at 1,140 nm wavelength to remove false alarms originated from background sources of the protected area. Then, the system digitizes and thresholds these images into binarized images for pattern recognition to remove any remaining false alarms.