Abstract
The potential benefits of real-time, or near-real-time, turbulent image processing hardware for long-range surveillance and weapons targeting are sufficient to motivate significant commitment of both time and money to their development. Thoughtful comparisons between potential candidates are necessary to confidently decide on a preferred processing algorithm. In this paper, we compare the mean-square-error (MSE) performance of speckle imaging methods and a maximum-likelihood, multi-frame blind deconvolution (MFBD) method applied to longpath horizontal imaging scenarios. Both methods are used to reconstruct a scene from simulated imagery featuring anisoplanatic turbulence induced aberrations. This comparison is performed over three sets of 1000 simulated images each for low, moderate and severe turbulence-induced image degradation. The comparison shows that speckle-imaging techniques reduce the MSE 46 percent, 42 percent and 47 percent on average for low, moderate, and severe cases, respectively using 15 input frames under daytime conditions and moderate frame rates. Similarly, the MFBD method provides, 40 percent, 29 percent, and 36 percent improvements in MSE on average under the same conditions. The comparison is repeated under low light conditions (less than 100 photons per pixel) where improvements of 39 percent, 29 percent and 27 percent are available using speckle imaging methods and 25 input frames and 38 percent, 34 percent and 33 percent respectively for the MFBD method and 150 input frames.
