Polarization descattering imaging: a solution for nonuniform polarization characteristics of a target surface

• DOI: 10.3788/col202119.111101
• Publication Date: 2021-10-26T06:15:36Z
• Authors: Yi Wei; Pingli Han; Fei Liu; Jinpeng Liu; Xiaopeng Shao
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 01 natural sciences

This paper presents a polarization descattering imaging method for underwater detection in which the targets have nonuniform polarization characteristics. The core of this method takes the nonuniform distribution of the polarization information of the target-reflected light into account and expands the application field of underwater polarization imaging. Independent component analysis was used to separate the target light and backscattered light. Theoretical analysis and proof-of-concept experiments were employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in estimating target information. The proposed method showed superiority in accurately estimating the target information compared with other polarization imaging methods.