SBIR/STTR Award attributes
To understand how insects and crustaceans sense and process light fields, researchers need a projection system that provides realistic wide field of view (FOV), high-speed imagery from UV to red (320-650nm) that includes polarization control. Insects and crustaceans have vastly different visual acuity and wavelength response from humans. In addition, some can sense polarization. Therefore, commercial projection systems do not produce believable content for insects. Researchers have found that unless the video content displayed to an insect conforms to naturally occurring scenery, the insect will simply ignore the screen. Their visual system responds to the stimulus, but the insects behavior is not influenced. Polaris Sensor Technologies (PST) and UAH designed Synapsys, a projection system that will present believable content to insects in the UV to Red (320-650nm) wavebands. Synapsys will operate at high video rates (>500Hz), wide FOV, and will include polarization control. Synapsys works by projecting 12 synchronous video streams (4 linearly polarized images in 3 different wavebands) onto a polarization preserving screen. The intensity of each video is controlled pixel by pixel independently such that when combined, an arbitrary linear polarization state (linear polarization orientation and degree of polarization) as well as color are presented at each pixel
