Feasibility Study of Optical Imaging through Atmospheric Obscurants

摘要

IMAGES PROCESSOptical imaging of objects through atmospheric obscurants is an area of active research driven by national defense, commercial, and scientific interests. Multiple scattering of light by particles in the intervening medium (such as, cloud, aerosol, fog, smoke in the atmosphere) reduces signal intensity and signal-to-noise ratio, contributes to the blurring of image. Using pulsed lasers, time-gated detectors, and other techniques to sort out the ballistic and early snake photons from the diffusive photons it is possible to extract information about objects embedded in turbid media. The objective of the research is to carry out a theoretical investigation for photon starvation and image resolution, associated with imaging of a distant object through a scattering and obscuring medium. In this research, we estimate the feasibility of ballistic and snake light imaging at different distances computed using our analytical cumulant expansion method and compare it with results of the Monte Carlo simulation.