Restoration and resolution enhancement of a single image from a vibration-distorted image sequence

In many applications such as in airborne and terrestrial reconnaissance, ro botics, medical imaging, and machine vision systems, the images of a video sequence are severely distorted by vibrations. Superresolution algorithms a re suitable for restoring an image from a low-frequency vibrated sequence b ecause of high correlation between the frames and inherent interframe motio n. However, we show that super resolution algorithms, which were developed for general types of blur, should be adapted to the specific characteristic s of low-frequency vibration blur. We demonstrate that in the case of image sequences distorted by vibration, the images should be selected prior to p rocessing. We find empirical selection criteria and propose a selection pro cedure, (C) 2000 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091 -3286(00)03309-2].