Multiframe superresolution of binary images

Abstract

We describe a new algorithm for superresolving a binary object from multiple undersampled low-resolution (LR) images that are degraded by diffraction-limited optical blur, detector blur, and additive white Gaussian noise. Two-dimensional distributed data detection (2D4) is an iterative algorithm that employs a message-passing technique for estimating the object pixel likelihoods. We present a novel non-training-based complexity-reduction technique that makes the algorithm suitable even for channels with support size as large as 5 x 5 object pixels. We compare the performance and computational complexity of 2D4 with that of iterative backprojection (IBP). In an imaging system with an optical blur spot matched to the object pixel size, 2 x 2 undersampled measurement pixels, and four LR images, the reconstruction error measured in terms of the number of pixel mismatches for 2D4 is 300 times smaller than that for IBP at a signal-to-noise ratio of 38 dB.