On the way to a pressure-tolerant imaging system

The present paper focuses on the development of a pressure-tolerant camera. At the beginning of the investigations, a simple camera with a lens and a modified image sensor housed into a case was constructed, entirely filled with an optically transparent fluid. By transmitting the ambient pressure onto the components no pressure difference exists between the surrounding sea water and pressure-tolerant systems. While taking pictures at different ambient pressures it turned out that the image quality decreased with increasing ambient pressure. Further investigations revealed that the refractive index of the optically transparent liquid is rather sensitive to liquid pressure. In order to overcome this problem, a pressure-tolerant camera has been developed, which shows a constant image quality independent from a pressure load of up to 1.200 bars. Due to its still simple construction, this camera is especially suited for deep-sea applications.