HIGH-RESOLUTION RESTORATION OF IMAGES DISTORTED BY THE ATMOSPHERE, BASED ON AN AVERAGE ATMOSPHERIC MODULATION TRANSFER-FUNCTION

A new method of real-time high-resolution imaging through the atmosphe re is presented. This technique is based on knowledge of average atmos pheric modulation transfer function (MTF) at the time the image is rec eived. Atmospheric effects are modeled by a noisy spatial frequency fi lter including an average component described by the average atmospher ic MTF and a noisy component modeled by the atmospheric point spread f unction's power spectral density. The noisy component represents rando m changes in the atmospheric MTF. Analytical results are accompanied b y experimental image restoration examples, indicating significant imag e quality improvement based on knowledge of average atmospheric MTF, w hich includes both turbulence and aerosol MTF components. This method can be used to help overcome the jitter characteristics of turbulence, and is capable of yielding real-time image restoration with resolutio n limited essentially only by the hardware itself. Turbulence blur, ae rosol blur, and contrast degradation are all corrected simultaneously, unlike adaptive optics, which corrects for turbulence only.