Kevin Chew Figueroa was selected as a 2023 NASA Space Grant recipient based on his proposal submission: “Seeing beyond the Diffraction Limit.“ Kevin will contribute to a grant funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) awarded to UArizona intended to detect, track, characterize, and catalog currently untracked small space debris that continues to pose a threat to manned space flights and civil and military space operations.
Kevin's research lies at the intersection of optical physics, computational imaging, computer vision and deep learning. He is currently under the mentorship of Prof. David Brady. His current research goal is to contribute to emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for array cameras utilizing Fourier Ptychography. Using long-range imaging beyond the diffraction limit and telescope arrays meant for 3D tracking and cataloging, he will pursue untracked small space debris posing threats to manned space flights and civil and military space operations.
Kevin’s research will allow for rapid development, immediate testing, generalizability over a multitude of physical phenomena, and swapping of various optical components. His work will hinge on the use of imaging modalities coupled with the latest deep neuromorphic architectures that are focused on procedurally generated 3D multiphysics-accurate space debris data. This data includes phase, polarization, coherent-effects, time-domain effects, or even optical-misalignment faced by multi-aperture systems.
In addition to the research, Kevin has planned to pursue outreach opportunities with K-12 students. Kevin will be creating videos and a comic book focused on this research aimed at middle school, high school and community college students.