Method of random wave vectors in simulation of anisoplanatic effects

A generalization of the method of random wave vectors [Appl. Opt. 36, 464 (1997)] that is suitable for a simulation of turbulence-induced anisoplanatic effects is proposed. A simulation of the cross-correlated phase fluctuations produced by two initially plane waves propagating through weak turbulence is considered. The variation of C(n)(2) along a propagation path and an effect of the finite outer scale of the turbulence are included in the simulation. The validity of the simulation method is verified by comparison of theoretical and simulated results. The simulation approach developed can be used in the problems related to adaptive optics, speckle inteferometry, guide stars, and imaging through turbulence.     

Method for simulating atmospheric turbulence phase effects for multiple time slices and anisoplanatic conditions

Simulating the effects of atmospheric turbulence on optical imaging systems is an important aspect of understanding the performance of these systems. Simulations are particularly important for understanding the statistics of some adaptive-optics system performance measures, such as the mean and variance of the compensated optical transfer function, and for understanding the statistics of estimators used to reconstruct intensity distributions from turbulence-corrupted image measurements. Current methods of simulating the performance of these systems typically make use of random phase screens placed in the system pupil. Methods exist for making random draws of phase screens that have the correct spatial statistics. However, simulating temporal effects and anisoplanatism requires one or more phase screens at different distances from the aperture, possibly moving with different velocities. We describe and demonstrate a method for creating random draws of phase screens with the correct space-time statistics for a bitrary turbulence and wind-velocity profiles, which can be placed in the telescope pupil in simulations. Results are provided for both the von Kármán and the Kolmogorov turbulence spectra. We also show how to simulate anisoplanatic effects with this technique.     

Approach for reconstructing anisoplanatic adaptive optics images

Atmospheric turbulence corrupts astronomical images formed by ground-based telescopes. Adaptive optics systems allow the effects of turbulence-induced aberrations to be reduced for a narrow field of view corresponding approximately to the isoplanatic angle theta(0). For field angles larger than theta(0), the point spread function (PSF) gradually degrades as the field angle increases. We present a technique to estimate the PSF of an adaptive optics telescope as function of the field angle, and use this information in a space-varying image reconstruction technique. Simulated anisoplanatic intensity images of a star field are reconstructed by means of a block-processing method using the predicted local PSF. Two methods for image recovery are used: matrix inversion with Tikhonov regularization, and the Lucy-Richardson algorithm. Image reconstruction results obtained using the space-varying predicted PSF are compared to space invariant deconvolution results obtained using the on-axis PSF. The anisoplanatic reconstruction technique using the predicted PSF provides a significant improvement of the mean squared error between the reconstructed image and the object compared to the deconvolution performed using the on-axis PSF.     

Correction of anisoplanatic phase errors in digital holography

The quality of coherent images computed from digital holography or heterodyne array data is sensitive to phase errors of the reference and/or object beams. A number of algorithms exist for correcting phase errors in or very near the hologram plane. In the case of phase errors introduced a nonnegligible distance away from hologram plane, the resulting imagery exhibits anisoplanatism. A feature of coherent imaging is that such phase errors may be corrected by simply propagating the aberrated fields (from the object) from the hologram plane to the plane where the phase errors were introduced and applying the phase-error correction algorithms to the fields in that plane. We present experimental results that demonstrate correction of such anisoplanatic phase errors.     

用斑点成像消除光学系统像差的影响

在详细分析用斑点成像消除目标图像中随机扰动影响的基础上,提出了在有像差光学系统中,应用斑点成像消除图像中像差影响的方法。通过在光学系统的光路中引入随机相位屏,采集物的短曝光像,用斑点成像处理,恢复目标图像的功率谱和相位谱,可以得到目标近衍射极限的图像。实验结果表明,这种方法可以消除图像中光学系统像差的影响。     

Pupil plane imager for estimation of turbulence over long horizontal paths

A pupil plane imaging system, consisting of a camera and optics that image the entrance pupil of a telescope, measures scintillation induced by atmospheric turbulence. Algorithms are developed to estimate the distribution of turbulence from scintillation assuming the well known relationship between scintillation scale size and the range of turbulence layer. The algorithms were exercised using a 75 cm pupil within a 1 meter telescope located at North Oscura Peak in New Mexico, based on light from a source 52.6 km away. Estimates of the C(n)(2) profile over the path are derived using coarse range bins. From the C(n)(2) profile, an estimate of Fried's transverse coherence length was computed and compared with that from other sensors. The algorithm is tested in several ways. Error sources are discussed, including the intrinsic insensitivity of the technique to turbulence near the pupil.     

Minimum entropy-neural network approach to turbulent-image reconstruction

We investigate a neural net-based algorithm for enhanced imaging through atmospheric turbulence. The concept is based on a standard model of optical turbulence, according to which a short-exposure point-spread function is a random superposition of speckles. This leads to a new method of image processing called the Fourier division approach. The latter requires the taking of two short-exposure images in rapid succession, which are picked up by an image-plane array, divided in Fourier space, and then processed by a minimum entropy-neural net approach. The main task of the processing is to estimate the two short-exposure point-spread functions that characterize the two images. Given these estimates, the two images may now be inverse filtered to produce two sharp object-scene estimates. These have most of the turbulence degradation removed, and are averaged to produce a single output image. The approach shows promise, in computer simulations, of removing nearly all of the turbulence degradation very quickly (currently tens of seconds). A further benefit arises from knowledge of the twoshort-exposure point-spread functions. These should permit identification of the state of turbulence along the imaging line of sight and, in particular, the presence of wind shear.     

Image transmission through a turbulent medium using a point reflector and four-wave mixing. 2: Characteristics of the system

The characteristics of the one-way image transmission system presented in Part 1 are investigated in detail [Appl. Opt. 22, 2192 (1983)]. First, a general expression of the expectation of the transmitted image is derived for turbulence that may be typical in image transmission in the horizontal direction. Then, with the help of numerical examples, the image quality is discussed in terms of the point spread function for both thin layer and uniformly distributed turbulence. It is shown that the image transmission system is effective especially where turbulence exists relatively close to the transmission plane.     

Turbulence strength estimation from an arbitrary set of atmospherically degraded images

In remote sensing, atmospheric turbulence and aerosols usually limit the image quality. For many practical cases, turbulence is shown to be dominant, especially for horizontal close-to-earth imaging in hot environments. In a horizontal long-range imaging, it is usually impractical to calculate path-averaged refractive index structure constant C(2)(n) (which characterizes the turbulence strength) with conventional equipment. We propose a method for estimating C(2)(n) from the available atmospherically degraded video sequence by calculating temporal intensity fluctuations in spatially high variance areas. Experimental comparison with C(2)(n) measurements using a scintillometer shows reliable estimation results.     

Atmospheric modulation transfer function in the infrared

In high-resolution ultranarrow field-of-view thermal imagers, image quality over relatively long path lengths is typically limited by atmospheric degradation, especially atmospheric blur. We report our results and analyses of infrared images from two sites, Fort A. P. Hill and Aberdeen Proving Ground. The images are influenced by the various atmospheric phenomena: scattering, absorption, and turbulence. A series of experiments with high-resolution equipment in both the 3-5- and 8-13-microm regions at the two locations indicate that, as in the visible, image quality is limited much more by atmosphere than by the instrumentation for ranges even of the order of only a few kilometers. For paths close to the ground, turbulence is more dominant, whereas for paths involving higher average elevation, aerosol modulation transfer function (MTF) is dominant. As wavelength increases, turbulence MTF also increases, thus permitting aerosol MTF to become more dominant. A critical role in aerosol MTF in the thermal infrared is attributed to absorption, which noticeably decreases atmospheric transmission much more than in the visible, thereby reducing high-spatial-frequency aerosol MTF. These measurements indicate that atmospheric MTF should be a basic component in imaging system design and analysis even in the infrared, especially as higher-resolution hardware becomes available.     

Use of modulated excitation signals in medical ultrasound. Part III: High frame rate imaging

This paper, the last from a series of three papers on the application of coded excitation signals in medical ultrasound, investigates the possibility of increasing the frame rate in ultrasound imaging by using modulated excitation signals. Linear array-coded imaging and sparse synthetic transmit aperture imaging are considered, and the trade-offs between frame rate, image quality, and SNR are discussed. It is shown that FM codes can be used to increase the frame rate by a factor of two without a degradation in image quality and by a factor of 5, if a slight decrease in image quality can be accepted. The use of synthetic transmit aperture imaging is also considered, and it is here shown that Hadamard spatial encoding in transmit with FM emission signals can be used to increase the frame rate by 12 to 25 times with either a slight or no reduction in signal-to-noise ratio and image quality. By using these techniques a complete ultrasound-phased array image can be created using only two emissions.     

Coherent-array imaging using phased subarrays. Part I: basic principles

The front-end hardware complexity of a coherent array imaging system scales with the number of active array elements that are simultaneously used for transmission or reception of signals. Different imaging methods use different numbers of active channels and data collection strategies. Conventional full phased array (FPA) imaging produces the best image quality using all elements for both transmission and reception, and it has high front-end hardware complexity. In contrast, classical synthetic aperture (CSA) imaging only transmits on and receives from a single element at a time, minimizing the hardware complexity but achieving poor image quality. We propose a new coherent array imaging method--phased subarray (PSA) imaging--that performs partial transmit and receive beam-forming using a subset of adjacent elements at each firing step. This method reduces the number of active channels to the number of subarray elements; these channels are multiplexed across the full array and a reduced number of beams are acquired from each subarray. The low-resolution subarray images are laterally upsampled, interpolated, weighted, and coherently summed to form the final high-resolution PSA image. The PSA imaging reduces the complexity of the front-end hardware while achieving image quality approaching that of FPA imaging.     

Sheared-beam imaging: an evaluation of its optical compensation of thick atmospheric turbulence

Sheared-beam imaging (SBI) should compensate the effects of an idealized layer of turbulence located either in a transmitter/detector plane or in an object plane. This motivated the study of optical compensation of SBI in the presence of uniformly distributed turbulence over long horizontal paths in the cases of ideally smooth and ideally rough extended objects. The phase error along a one-dimensional wave front resulting from SBI observation is computed numerically in the long-path regime and is compared with that of an equivalent conventional system for the case of a large smooth object. It is found that for the conditions considered the phase errors of the SBI system are greater than those of a conventional system. In the case of an ideally rough object the extra information furnished by the SBI observations does not lead to data that can be inverted to compute an image by the conventional shearing-interferometric algorithm. The phase errors in imaging a point reflector, however, are perfectly compensated.     

Image sharpness and beam focus VLSI sensors for adaptive optics

High-resolution wavefront control for adaptive optics requires accurate sensing of a measure of optical quality. We present two analog very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) image-plane sensors that supply real-time metrics of image and beam quality, for applications in imaging and line-of-sight laser communication. The image metric VLSI sensor quantifies sharpness of the received image in terms of average rectified spatial gradients. The beam metric VLSI sensor returns first and second order spatial moments of the received laser beam to quantify centroid and width. Closed-loop wavefront control of a laser beam through turbulence is demonstrated using a spatial phase modulator and analog VLSI controller that performs stochastic parallel gradient descent of the beam width metric.     

扩展目标高分辨力斑点成象的模拟

介绍了扩展目标高分辨力斑点成象过程的计算机模拟,内容包括大气湍波的模拟、目标短曝光象的形成、目标功率谱的估计、目标傅里叶相位的恢复以及克服大气湍流影响后目标高分瘁力图象的重建。模拟结果显示,斑点成象技术可以克服大气湍流的影响,获得了望远镜口径决定的衍射极限的成象分辨力。模拟所建立的系统,也为进一步深入研究扩展目标的高分辨力斑点成象技术打下了基础。     

Imaging objects hidden in scattering media with fluorescence polarization preservation of contrast agents

A method for fluorescence polarization difference imaging is demonstrated for enhancing the image quality of a luminous object embedded in a random medium. The polarization preservation of light propagating in the scattering medium leads to partially polarized light emission by a contrast-agent dye located inside the object. Subtraction of the images of the luminous object detected at two orthogonal polarization directions improves the image resolution compared with a conventional optical imaging approach.     

On- and off-axis statistical behavior of adaptive-optics-corrected short-exposure Strehl ratio

Statistical behavior of the adaptive-optics- (AO-) corrected short-exposure point-spread function (PSF) is derived assuming a perfect correction of the phase's low spatial frequencies. Analytical expressions of the Strehl ratio (SR) fluctuations of on- and off-axis short-exposure PSFs are obtained. A theoretical expression of the short SR angular correlation is proposed and used to derive a definition of an anisoplanatic angle for AO-corrected images. Several applications of the analytical expressions are proposed: AO performance characterization, postprocessing imaging, light coupling into fiber, and exoplanet detection from a ground-based telescope.     

Anisoplanatic deconvolution of adaptive optics images

A modified method for maximum-likelihood deconvolution of astronomical adaptive optics images is presented. By parametrizing the anisoplanatic character of the point-spread function (PSF), a simultaneous optimization of the spatially variant PSF and the deconvolved image can be performed. In the ideal case of perfect information, it is shown that the algorithm is able to perfectly cancel the adverse effects of anisoplanatism down to the level of numerical precision. Exploring two different modes of deconvolution (using object bases of pixel values or stellar field parameters), we then quantify the performance of the algorithm in the presence of Poissonian noise for crowded and noncrowded stellar fields.     

Optical turbulence on underwater image degradation in natural environments

It is a well-known fact that the major degradation source on electro-optical imaging underwater is from scattering by particles of various origins and sizes. Recent research indicates that, under certain conditions, the apparent degradation could also be caused by the variations of index of refraction associated with temperature and salinity microstructures in the ocean and lakes. The combined impact has been modeled previously through the simple underwater imaging model. The current study presents the first attempts in quantifying the level of image degradation due to optical turbulence in natural waters in terms of modulation transfer functions using measured turbulence dissipation rates. Image data collected from natural environments during the Skaneateles Optical Turbulence Exercise are presented. Accurate assessments of the turbulence conditions are critical to the model validation and were measured by two instruments to ensure consistency and accuracy. Optical properties of the water column in the field were also measured in coordination with temperature, conductivity, and depth. The results show that optical turbulence degrades the image quality as predicted and on a level comparable to that caused by the particle scattering just above the thermocline. Other contributing elements involving model closure, including temporal and spatial measurement scale differences among sensors and mitigation efforts, are discussed.     

Dual imaging modality of granular flow based on ECT sensors

In this study, a previously developed dual modality imaging system is applied to image the flow of granular matter with different electrical properties in cylindrical vessels. The imaging system is based on both capacitance and power measurements acquired by an electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) sensor located around the vessel. The measurement data are then used to reconstruct cross-sectional images of both permittivity and conductivity distributions. A neural network multi-criterion optimization reconstruction technique (NN-MOIRT) is used for the inverse (reconstruction) problem. The contribution of this technology to the field of granular matters is explored through review of research articles that can be a direct application of this development. We discuss the capabilities of this dual-modality acquisition system using synthetic data for granular matter with different electrical properties.