Reconstruction of long horizontal-path images under anisoplanatic conditions using multiframe blind deconvolution

Abstract

All optical systems that operate in or through the atmosphere suffer from turbulence induced image blur. Both military and civilian surveillance, gun sighting, and target identification systems are interested in terrestrial imaging over very long horizontal paths, but atmospheric turbulence can blur the resulting images beyond usefulness. This work explores the mean square error (MSE) performance of a multiframe blind deconvolution (MFBD) technique applied under anisoplanatic conditions for both Gaussian and Poisson noise model assumptions. The technique is evaluated for use in reconstructing images of scenes corrupted by turbulence in long horizontal-path imaging scenarios. Performance is evaluated via the reconstruction of a common object from three sets of simulated turbulence degraded imagery representing low, moderate, and severe turbulence conditions. Each set consisted of 1000 simulated turbulence degraded images. The MSE performance of the estimator is evaluated as a function of the number of images, and the number of Zernike polynomial terms used to characterize the point spread function. A Gaussian noise model-based MFBD algorithm reconstructs objects that showed as much as 40% improvement in MSE with as few as 14 frames and 30 Zernike coefficients used in the reconstruction, despite the presence of anisoplanatism in the data. An MFBD algorithm based on the Poisson noise model required a minimum of 50 frames to achieve significant improvement over the average MSE for the data set. Reconstructed objects show as much as 38% improvement in MSE using 175 frames and 30 Zernike coefficients in the reconstruction.