Beam Scintillation Effects on Identification Performance with Active Imaging Systems

摘要

In this paper, beam scintillation effects on the illumination of targets are quantified with respect to human observer performance. The theory of man-in-the-loop target acquisition is reviewed along with the principles of operation of an actively illuminated gated incoherent imager. A model to account for the effects of beam scintillation on target acquisition performance is introduced. A simulation of beam propagation was developed and used to apply a non-uniform illuminating field to a series of monochrome images of targets. These images were then used in a perception experiment with trained observers. The results of these perception experiments compare well with predictions from the model.