Configurable bandwidth imaging spectrometer based on acousto-optic tunable filter

This paper presents a new portable instrument called Autonomous Tunable Filtering System (ATFS), developed for highly customisable imaging spectrometry in the VIS-NIR range. The ATFS instrument consists of an Acousto-Optic Tunable Filter (AOTF), an optical system, a Radio Frequency (RF) driver based on a Direct Digital Synthesiser (DDS) and control software. The ATFS can be attached to a variety of high-performance monochrome cameras. The system works as a spectral bandpass filter whose wavelength can be selected between 400nm and 1000nm and whose bandwidth can be adjusted between 4nm and 50nm. The filter can be tuned electronically at a very high speed and accuracy, thanks to the DDS versa…