SYNOPTICS is a research programme running from 2020-2025 with the aim to use all properties of light (amplitude, phase, polarization and wavelength) to achieve ultimate performance in imaging and sensing in diverse applications. To limit data streams and to guarantee high speed, compressed sensing techniques are applied. Six universities are taking part in the research (TUD, UU, RUN, UT, UL, TUE) and there are 16 industrial users. The budget is ± 5 MEuro.

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TTW Perspectief Progamme

By illuminating objects with light and measuring how the object changes the light distribution, the object can be characterized. Most optical measurement techniques use only one or a few specific properties such as the light intensity or the polarisation rotation.  Within the Synoptic Optics Programme researchers  investigate methods to analyze all properties of the light to extract as much information about the object as possible.  Clever algorithms and methods of  compressed sensing are applied to ensure that the measurements are still sufficiently fast. Furthermore, a special new optical source based on a dual frequency comb set-up is developed and applied for different frequency ranges. This source is very suitable for heterodyne phase sensitive detection.

Several applications are addressed from detecting air pollution to determining very small structures in the semicon industry.

Prof. dr. H.P. Urbach (Delft Universiteit of Technology) is the programme leader.

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Participants

Airbus, Bronkhorst, Cosine,  Demcon, Grass Valley, Holoeye, Holst Centre, KNMI, Lionix, MenloSystems, Nexperia, Radboud Universiteit, Settels Savenije, Sioux, Delft University of Technology,  Eindhoven University of Technology, TNO, University of Leiden,  Twente University, University of Utrecht, VDL and VSL.

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