LADAR Range Image Interpolation Exploiting Pulse Width Expansion.

摘要

Laser Detection and Ranging (LADAR) systems produce both a range image and an intensity image by measuring the intensity of light reflected off a surface target. When the transmitted LADAR pulse strikes a sloped surface, the returned pulse is expanded temporally. This characteristic of the reflected laser pulse enables the possibility of estimating the gradient of a surface. This study estimates the gradient of the surface of an object from a modeled LADAR return pulse that includes accurate probabilistic noise models. The range and surface gradient estimations are incorporated into a novel interpolator that facilitates an effective three dimensional (3D) reconstruction of an image given a range of operating conditions. The performance of the novel interpolator is measured by comparing the reconstruction effort against the performance of three common interpolation techniques: linear, spline, and sinc.