Multi-aperture imaging has been used to receive high resolution images from arrays of sub-apertures. The use of sub-aperture arrays allows for more compact optical systems and enables conformal aperture imaging. Images collected from these arrays are processed to obtain the high resolution image. A High resolution image is created from an accurate representation of the pupil plane fields in each sub-aperture. Data processing to create an image is time consuming and computationally heavy. Compensating for the unknown piston phase error between the different sub-apertures is one of the more time consuming corrections required to process the image data into a single image.
Sub-aperture phasing simulations are used to explore the processing of multi-aperture arrays. The data is processed for several sub-aperture arrays, including 2 and 3 in-line sub-aperture arrays, and hex 7 and 19 sub-aperture arrays. A scheme is proposed for measuring the piston phases in each sub-aperture. It is shown through
numerical simulations that a system that measures the piston phase could significantly reduce the processing time required to phase the images from a multi aperture system into a single high resolution image.