I² sharpness metric vs phase-diversity metric

High-resolution imaging using lucky frame selection

Authors: S. C. Woods, J. G. Burnett, P. J. Kent and A. J. Turner

This paper reports on progress towards the development of an imaging methodology which has potential for producing high-resolution imagery that has not been degraded by atmospheric turbulence. The technique relies on a well known concept called 'lucky frame selection', although uses a radically different approach. Rather than using an image based metric to determine image quality we have proposed the use of a 'phase-diversity' metric (PDM). We have shown that there are several advantages to the use of such a metric: computational speed and efficiency, insensitivity to noise, image content and distortion. These advantages have been demonstrated using real imagery. A frame composition algorithm has also been developed which builds up, over an imaging sequence, an undistorted good quality image. The technique has been demonstrated over a 4.3km ground-to-ground path with up to a factor of 2 improvement in image quality.

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