Multichannel blind deconvolution for full Stokes image recovery

Abstract

Random, time-varying blur due to atmospheric turbulence is known to significantly limit image quality. In division-of-time polarimeters, turbulence also randomly distorts the images that are used to infer the polarization content of the scene, leading to substantial Stokes image estimation errors. This research proposes a method to jointly estimate the full polarization properties of a scene along with the point spread functions (PSFs) for each imaging channel in the presence of isoplanatic turbulence. In particular, this research significantly expands on an existing algorithm, to include circular polarization in the framework of a generalized expectation maximization approach. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated on laboratory data using a surrogate phase screen placed near the entrance pupil of an imaging system.