IMAGE PROCESSING FOR THREE DIMENSIONAL VOLUME IMAGING LASER RADAR SYSTEM

摘要

Volume imaging lidar, one of the newest innovations in laser remote sensing methods finds its applications in studying inhomogenities in atmosphere, tracking the air pollutants and for understanding the dispersion of various constituents of the atmosphere like clouds on the real time basis. This technique provides the three dimensional structure of the target as a function of time and range. In this method image of the target is obtained from the scattered/reflected light of the target along with range information. This helps to detect and identify the target and obtain their structure with very good spatial resolution. The presence of multiple targets within the range can be detected and identified. The imaging lidar finds applications in many scientific, commercial and strategic areas. The image obtained may not be always very good in contrast and sharpness for easy identification and study of the target. In such circumstances it is necessary that the image is processed using suitable software tools to improve the image quality and also for pattern recognition if needed. There are different image processing techniques used for enhancing the quality and content of the captured image. Some of the important processing methods and their application on the images so obtained are discussed in this paper.