Transport-Equation Digital Image Correction System

Ground-based visible and infrared imaging of distant objects is hampered by the distortions due to the atmosphere, so that the angular resolution that ground-based and airborne telescopes are capable of are seldom achieved on a real-time basis. However, the Transport-Equation Digital Image Correction system is a full-correction (amplitude and phase) innovation that is optically and electronically simpler, less expensive, and more sensitive to beacons or to self-calibrating extended objects than conventional means. Pairs of slightly defocussed images are processed at millisecond rates for amplitude as well as the usual phase information. Through the energy transport-equation technique and through feedback of correction for speckle, clear images are real-time, digitally reconstructed without the deformable mirror of conventional adaptive optics. Phase I is to expertly develop a compute simulation of the real-time system to test the algorithms and to design the pre-prototype system for integration and testing in Phase II.