Monte Carlo Simulation with Experimental Research about Underwater Transmission and Imaging of Laser

Abstract

Attenuation of the laser beam in underwater transmission and detection due to absorption and scattering results in a rapid reduction in energy and blurring of the image. By combining the bidirectional reflectivity distribution function (BRDF) with the Monte Carlo (MC) method, a full-link underwater imaging process model was established which comprehensively investigated the influence of water quality, transmission distance and target characteristics on imaging performance. In order to describe the transmission process of the light more accurately, by adding particles with both absorption and scattering functions in the medium, the Mie scattering theory was employed to simulate the real channel. Moreover, while setting the gate width, the pre-calibrated detector response curve was employed to build a corresponding relationship between the image grayscale and the detector collection energy, aiming to simulate the working mode of the detector in the experiment. In various imaging scenarios, the maximum relative errors between the simulated images and experimental results were within 30%, which proved the correctness of the imaging simulation model and the feasibility of the imaging MC (IMC) method to evaluate the quality of whole imaging process.