Contractor wanted for project QCOptSens | Optimisation of diffractive systems with quantum computers

14. March 2024

We are looking for companies to support our QCOptSense project in the development of new approaches to improve optical instruments for aerospace with quantum computers. Participation in the tender process is possible via TED 155072-2024. The submission deadline is 15 April 2024 at 2 pm. We have published the tender documents and specifications on subreport ELViS.

The DLR Institute of Optical Sensor Systems (DLR OS) has been successfully developing camera systems and spectrometers for aerospace, security and transport applications for many years. These highly complex instruments contain a large number of optical, mechanical, electronic and software components that have to be harmonised in detail and controlled during operation in order to guarantee high data quality.

These strict requirements against the background of ever-increasing dimensionality in the sensor data require new technologies and calculation methods in instrument design in the long term. This is where we reach the limits of available approaches, as each instrument must be optimised in terms of data quality and boundary conditions with regard to a large number of environment-dependent parameters. A prototypical problem here is the design of diffractive structures. Forward calculations of light propagation are possible with today’s computers, but an exact inverse optimisation of diffraction designs is no longer feasible in a global-optimal way, as a simultaneous consideration of many local optima would be necessary.

Collaboration in the QCOptSens project

With this call, we are looking for an industrial partner to develop new approaches for the improvement of optical instruments for aerospace applications. The aim is to optimise diffractive structures for the application and calibration of optical sensor systems in the aerospace industry, particularly under manufacturing boundary conditions. The calibration of high-resolution hyperspectral camera systems is carried out with components that are intended to generate diffraction patterns according to strict targets. Their efficient design under manufacturing conditions leads to hard optimisation problems and it will be investigated whether these can be solved globally with hybrid quantum computing.

Specifically, this involves the optimal diffraction structures required for geometric camera calibration. Our contractor is to work on this issue on an optical system in the field of aerospace and navigation (“commercial off-the-shelf” – COTS with CE certification) that he has provided himself and that is available on the market for end customers.

All information can be found in the tender documents including the service description on subreport ELViS.