When: Oct 10 2019 @ 1:00 PM
Where: Malone 228
3400 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218

Title: Minimally-Invasive Lens-free Computational Microendoscopy
Abstract: Ultra-miniaturized imaging tools are vital for numerous biomedical applications. Such minimally invasive imagers allow for navigation into hard-toreach regions and, for example, observation of deep brain activity in freely moving animals with minimal ancillary tissue damage. Conventional solutions employ distal microlenses. However, as lenses become smaller and thus less invasive they develop greater optical aberrations, requiring bulkier compound designs with restricted field-of-view. In addition, tools capable of 3-dimensional volumetric imaging require components that physically scan the focal plane, which ultimately increases the distal complexity, footprint, and weight. Simply put, minimally-invasive imaging systems have limited information capacity due to their given cross-sectional area.
This thesis explores minimally-invasive lens-free microendoscopy enabled by a successful integration of signal processing, optical hardware, and image reconstruction algorithms. Several computational microendoscopy architectures that simultaneously achieve miniaturization and high information content are presented. Leveraging the computational imaging techniques enables color-resolved imaging with wide field-of-view, and 3-dimensional volumetric reconstruction of an unknown scene using a single camera frame without any actuated parts, further advancing the performance versus invasiveness of microendoscopy.