Comprehensive analysis of imaging quality degradation of an airborne optical system for aerodynamic flow field around the optical window.

We investigated the influences exerted by the nonuniform aerodynamic flow field surrounding the optical window on the imaging quality degradation of an airborne optical system. The density distribution of flow fields around three typical optical windows, including a spherical window, an ellipsoidal window, and a paraboloidal window, were calculated by adopting the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with the Spalart-Allmaras model provided by FLUENT. The fourth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm based ray-tracing program was used to simulate the optical transmission through the aerodynamic flow field.