Fiber optic combiner and duplicator

The investigation of the possible development of two optical devices, one to take two images as inputs and to present their arithmetic sum as a single output, the other to take one image as input and present two identical images as outputs is described. Significant engineering time was invested in establishing precision fiber optics drawing capabilities, real time monitoring of the fiber size and exact measuring of fiber optics ribbons. Various assembly procedures and tooling designs were investigated and prototype models were built and evaluated that established technical assurance that the device was feasible and could be fabricated. Although the interleaver specification in its entirety was not achieved, the techniques developed in the course of the program improved the quality of images transmitted by fiber optic arrays by at least an order of magnitude. These techniques are already being applied to the manufacture of precise fiber optic components.