Study on space/frequency domain response mechanism of optical synthetic aperture imaging system

Optical synthetic aperture (OSA) imaging system is an effective method for astronomical telescopes to realize superresolution imaging, which has important applications in astronomical observation and space remote sensing. The timedivision multiplexing sub-aperture array is a potentially powerful way to construct the larger array configuration by changing the basic array configuration several times with less apertures. In this paper, according to the theory of incoherent optical imaging, the physical mechanism of space/frequency domain response of OSA system is discussed. From the basic pinhole-aperture array to the circular-aperture array, the evolution of the point spread function (PSF) and the modulation transfer function (MTF) is analyzed. The inherent laws and imaging differences between the time-division multiplexing sub-aperture array and the traditional synthetic aperture array are revealed. Also, it is shown that under the specific array condition, the reconstructed image obtained by the time-division multiplexing synthetic aperture system can approach the imaging quality and resolution given by the traditional synthetic aperture array. It provides a new perspective for the array configuration design of OSA imaging system.