Triple parabolic cone wheel: a driving structure for the rapid panoramic tracking imaging system

Rotating staring panoramic imaging systems often suffer from low image data refresh rates, which limit their practicality. This study introduces an innovative driving mechanism, the triple parabolic cone wheel (TPCW), designed for panoramic infrared imaging. By optimizing the structure and active-part curves of the cam mechanism, three convex segments were added to the conical surface grooves, enabling the simultaneous drive of five mirrors with distinct motion patterns and speeds. The TPCW facilitates linear mirror movement, eliminating typical image rotation issues and raising the panoramic refresh rate of the system to at least 3 Hz, significantly exceeding the 0.5-1 Hz of comparable systems. Experiments confirmed that parabolic grooves on the TPCW converted uniform rotation into variable linear mirror motion, driving multi-view mirrors in a predefined sequence.