SNR Analysis for Practical Electro-Optical Camera System

An electro-optical camera system consists of many subsystems such as the optics, the detector, and the electronics and so on. They may create variations in the processed image that were not present original scene. The performance analysis of the electro-optical camera system is a mathematical construct that provides an optimum design through appropriate trade off analysis. The SNR(Signal to Noise Ratio) is one of the most important performance for the electro-optical camera system. The SNR analysis shown in this paper is performed based on the practical high resolution satellite camera design. For the purpose of the practical camera design, the analysis assumes that the defined radiance, which is calculated for the Korean peninsula, reached directly to the telescope entrance. In addition, the actual operation concept such as integration time and the normal operation altitude is assumed. This paper compares the SNR analysis results according to the various camera characteristics such as the optics, the detector, and the camera electronics. In detail, the optical characteristics can be split into the focal length, F#, transmittance, and so on. And the system responsivity, the quantum efficiency, the TDI stages, the quantization noise and the analogue noise can be used for the detector and the camera electronics characteristics. Finally this paper suggests the optimum design to apply the practical electro-optical system.