Phase Diversity and Polarization Augmented Techniques for Active Imaging

<p>A firm understanding of the space environment is necessary to defend US access to space-based systems. Conventional imaging systems have been developed to gather information on space-based objects but they are incapable of imaging objects in the earth's shadow. In order close this gap in imaging-system coverage an active-illumination based approach must be used. To facilitate this a multi-frame active phase diversity imaging (APDI) algorithm is derived and demonstrated for the statistics of coherent light. In addition to conventional focal-plane and diversity-plane data a statistical description for the pupil-plane intensity distribution is formed and included in the derivation. The algorithm is implemented and characterized using a Monte Carlo approach. Analysis shows that the algorithm is robust that the effect of system configuration on optimal algorithm parameters is minimal that the algorithm is insensitive to detection noise for SNR 7 and that it performs well for SNR's as low as 2. Furthermore it's shown that introduction of pupil-plane data on average results in a 60% better image reconstruction from dynamically aberrated data than is obtained using only focal-plane and diversity-plane data.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>