Earth observation scanning system

Abstract

An aspect of the disclosure provides An earth observation apparatus to be carried by a moving aerial platform or satellite for obtaining images of the surface of the earth, the apparatus comprising: an optical train having an optical field of view for imaging a region of the surface of the earth and being configured to form an image of the region at an image plane; an image sensor disposed at the image plane providing an imaging field of view; a view adjuster configured to control the optical train to: provide forward motion compensation for a stare time; and to displace the image, relative to the imaging field of view, in an across-track direction in a sequence of discrete displacement steps during each stare time; wherein the image sensor comprises a plurality of active areas, each comprising an area array detector and the active areas being spaced apart by inactive areas at the image plane wherein each active area captures a frame of image data for each discrete displacement step thereby to capture a plurality of frames for each discrete displacement step and the plurality of frames captured for each discrete displacement step are displaced in the across-track direction, relative to the imaging field of view, from the plurality of frames captured for the next discrete step.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.