Polarimetric Sensor for Airborne Platforms

Polarimetric imaging is a form of remote sensing that measures the relative intensity of the polarized components of reflected radiation from natural sources in an uncontrolled environment. In a natural scene, the majority of photons are randomly polarized. However, polarization can be induced by reflection off planar surfaces. This is particularly useful for detecting reflection from machined (man-made) surfaces. Polarization is also induced in an object’s self-emitted (thermal) radiation. Polarization information has been demonstrated to discriminate targets/objects from camouflage and clutter. Additionally, it has been shown that partially buried land mines can be discriminated by the polarization content of their thermal self-emission. This proposal describes a unique polarimetric device that, when incorporated into an imaging camera, will produce two orthogonally polarized images and measure the complete Stokes vector from a single focal plane in wavebands spanning the visible through the long wave infrared. Furthermore, this device has no moving parts, is non-lossy, and extremely compact. We will develop and demonstrate the polarimetric imager under the Phase I contract, and incorporate it into a compact multiband camera capturing simultaneous video in the visible and infrared in Phase II.