Wide Field-of-View Imaging System with Active Mitigation of Turbulence Effects for Tactical Applications

Mitigation, correction, or cancellation of the deleterious effects of atmospheric turbulence on wide field of view (WFOV) imagery is desired to increase the efficiency and accuracy of visual tasks performed at a distance. With recent advances in optical components, coatings, microfabrication, and signal processing power, technology now exists to solve the imaging through turbulence problem with compact integrated optical instrumentation. Recently, Nanohmics scientists have developed and demonstrated a passive extended-scene, plenoptic wavefront sensor that has operational characteristics that allow it to be used as an imager simultaneously with making wavefront measurements. In fact, imaging is part of the measurement process of this sensor, and the unique and innovative features of the foundational plenoptic camera at its heart allow image processing operations that can mitigate scene distortions due to turbulence aberration. The Integrated Camera for Imaging Through Turbulence (ICITT) is constructed with a plenoptic wavefront sensor at its heart, but the measurements are not used for wavefront reconstruction or adaptive optics, but rather for correcting the measured image of the scene for turbulence-induced distortions.