Image recovery method for underwater targets with complex polarization characteristics

Abstract

Polarization imaging techniques have been effective in improving the clarity of turbid underwater images affected by water scattering. These techniques offer valuable additional information compared to traditional methods. However, previous descattering methods have mostly been designed for targets with uniform distribution of polarimetric characteristics. Therefore, targets with complex polarization characteristics have non-uniform distribution of polarization characteristics when dealing with such problems, additional parameter estimation errors can limit the results of image recovery. This paper proposes what we believe is a novel approach to address this issue. The method involves obtaining a new set of images using the polarization images vector space transformation method. The angle of polarization (AOP) of the target reflected light is estimated using the additivity law of the Stokes vector. This information is then combined with the physical model of underwater imaging to recover the underwater images affected by scattering. Experimental results conducted under varying levels of water turbidity validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Moreover, the proposed method significantly broadens the range of application scenarios.