Date of Award

3-11-2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Stephen C. Cain, PhD.

Abstract

A three channel polarimetric deconvolution algorithm was developed to mitigate the degrading effects of atmospheric turbulence in astronomical imagery. Tests were executed using both simulation and laboratory data. The resulting efficacy of the three channel algorithm was compared to a recently developed two channel approach under identical conditions ensuring a fair comparison amongst both algorithms. Two types of simulations were performed. The first was a binary star simulation to compare resulting resolutions between the three and two channel algorithms. The second simulation measured how effective both algorithms could deconvolve a blurred satellite image. The simulation environment assumed the key parameters of Fried's Seeing parameter, , and telescope lens diameters of and . The simulation results showed that the three channel algorithm always reconstructed the true image as good as or better than the two channel approach, while the total squared error was always significantly better for the three channel algorithm. The next step is comparing the two algorithms in the laboratory environment. However, the laboratory imagery was not actually blurred by atmospheric turbulence, but instead camera defocusing was used to simulate the blurring that would be caused by atmospheric turbulence. The results show that the three channel significantly outperforms the two channel in a visual reconstruction of the true image.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GE-ENG-11-10

DTIC Accession Number

ADA540125

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