Long-range polarimetric imaging through fog

Appl Opt. 2014 Jun 20;53(18):3854-65. doi: 10.1364/AO.53.003854.

Abstract

We report an experimental implementation of long-range polarimetric imaging through fog over kilometric distance in real field atmospheric conditions. An incoherent polarized light source settled on a telecommunication tower is imaged at a distance of 1.3 km with a snapshot polarimetric camera including a birefringent Wollaston prism, allowing simultaneous acquisition of two images along orthogonal polarization directions. From a large number of acquisitions datasets and under various environmental conditions (clear sky/fog/haze, day/night), we compare the efficiency of using polarized light for source contrast increase with different signal representations (intensity, polarimetric difference, polarimetric contrast, etc.). With the limited-dynamics detector used, a maximum fourfold increase in contrast was demonstrated under bright background illumination using polarimetric difference image.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Image Enhancement / instrumentation*
  • Light
  • Lighting / instrumentation*
  • Nephelometry and Turbidimetry / instrumentation*
  • Photography / instrumentation*
  • Refractometry / instrumentation*
  • Remote Sensing Technology / instrumentation*
  • Scattering, Radiation
  • Weather*