Multi-Band Polarization Imaging in a Harsh Sea Fog Environment

Abstract

Researchers in many nations are focusing more on the growth and usage of the marine field, and it is apparent that study on the marine field will be the future development trend. The present study adopts the idea of polarization imaging based on liquid crystal phase retarder as a solution to the drawbacks of conventional industrial camera imaging clarity. Various optical thicknesses are employed to characterize the sea fog concentration; an outside optical imaging equipment is constructed for sea fog imaging research; and pictures comprising polarization characteristics may be determined through image processing. Using multi-band as factors, the benefit of polarization imaging in a sea fog environment is assessed objectively using contrast, information entropy, degree of polarization, and other evaluation indices. The results demonstrate that the quality of the polarization image is superior to that of the intensity image and that the outline of the target is more pronounced in the polarization image. Additionally, the polarization imaging effect is better in the 670 nm band, and the polarization contrast is increased by 1.9%. The contrast trend of the polarization picture is impacted by the time period, but it is roughly equivalent to that of the intensity image. This gives a solid platform for target surveys and civic operations under conditions of dense marine fog.

Keywords

• sea fog
• image processing
• multi-band polarization imaging
• intensity images