Design of an FPGA-Based High-Quality Real-Time Autonomous Dehazing System

Abstract

Image dehazing, as a common solution to weather-related degradation, holds great promise for photography, computer vision, and remote sensing applications. Diverse approaches have been proposed throughout decades of development, and deep-learning-based methods are currently predominant. Despite excellent performance, such computationally intensive methods as these recent advances amount to overkill, because image dehazing is solely a preprocessing step. In this paper, we utilize an autonomous image dehazing algorithm to analyze a non-deep dehazing approach. After that, we present a corresponding FPGA design for high-quality real-time vision systems. We also conduct extensive experiments to verify the efficacy of the proposed design across different facets. Finally, we introduce a method for synthesizing cloudy images (loosely referred to as hazy images) to facilitate future aerial surveillance research.

Keywords

• image dehazing
• automation
• FPGA
• synthetic cloud/haze generation
• aerial surveillance