| Computational optical sensing integrates somewhat non-intuitive sensing methods with processing algorithms to perform sensing tasks. This dissertation applies computational optical sensing techniques to spectroscopy. The applications discussed in this document are further refined with task-specific details, allowing us to build more efficient sensors. Three major projects are covered, each involving the construction and experimental testing of a task-specific computational spectrometer. The first is the rotational shear interferometer, which is applied to spatio-spectral point source tracking. In this project, an interferometer is attached to a telescope and used to observe stars. The second project is the dispersion multiplexing spectrometer, which applies two multiplexing techniques to miniaturize a dispersive spectrometer. The third project integrates a coded aperture spectrometer with a remote Raman chemical detection system, showing that the coded aperture spectrometer is capable of higher light throughput, and therefore greater signal to noise ratio than a traditional slit-based spectrometer. All the instruments developed during the course of this work serve as prototypes for their particular applications and demonstrate the utility of computational spectroscopy for task specific sensing. |
