Quantifying the improvement of turbulence mitigation technology

Stephen Kozacik; Aaron Paolini; Ariel Sherman; James Bonnett; Eric Kelmelis

doi:10.1117/12.2263778

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4 May 2017 Quantifying the improvement of turbulence mitigation technology

Stephen Kozacik, Aaron Paolini, Ariel Sherman, James Bonnett, Eric Kelmelis

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Proceedings Volume 10204, Long-Range Imaging II; 102040A (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2263778
Event: SPIE Defense + Security, 2017, Anaheim, California, United States

Abstract

Atmospheric turbulence degrades imagery by imparting scintillation and warping effects that can reduce the ability to identify key features of the subjects. While visually, a human can intuitively understand the improvement that turbulence mitigation techniques can offer in increasing visual information, this enhancement is rarely quantified in a meaningful way. In this paper, we discuss methods for measuring the potential improvement on system performance video enhancement algorithms can provide. To accomplish this, we explore two metrics. We use resolution targets to determine the difference between imagery degraded by turbulence and that improved by atmospheric correction techniques. By comparing line scans between the data before and after processing, it is possible to quantify the additional information extracted. Advanced processing of this data can provide information about the effective modulation transfer function (MTF) of the system when atmospheric effects are considered and removed, using this data we compute a second metric, the relative improvement in Strehl ratio.

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Stephen Kozacik, Aaron Paolini, Ariel Sherman, James Bonnett, and Eric Kelmelis "Quantifying the improvement of turbulence mitigation technology", Proc. SPIE 10204, Long-Range Imaging II, 102040A (4 May 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2263778

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