New Methodology for Reducing Sensor and Readout Electronics Circuitry Noise in Digital Domain

Upcoming NASA cosmology survey missions, such as Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), carry instruments with multiple focal planes populated with many large sensor detector arrays. These sensors are passively cooled to low temperatures for low-level light and near-infrared (NIR) signal detection, and the sensor readout electronics circuitry must perform at extremely low noise levels to enable new required science measurements. Because we are at the technological edge of enhanced performance for sensors and readout electronics circuitry, as determined by thermal noise level at given temperature in analog domain, we must find new ways of further compensating for the noise in the signal digital domain. To facilitate this new approach, state-of-the-art sensors are augmented at their array hardware boundaries by non-illuminated or non-sensitive to photons reference pixels, which can be used to reduce noise attributed to sensor and readout electronics. There are a few proposed methodologies of processing in the digital domain the information carried by reference pixels. These methods involve using spatial and temporal global statistical scalar parameters derived from boundary reference pixel information to enhance the active pixels’ signals. To make a step beyond this heritage methodology, we apply the NASA-developed technology known as the Hilbert-Huang Transform Data Processing System (HHT-DPS) to some component of reference pixel vectors’ information. This allows to derive a noise correction array, which, in addition to the statistical parameter over the signal trend, is applied to the active pixel array.