Robust single-shot spectral-polarization ghost imaging to underwater scattering environments

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Oceanography
• Image Processing

Background:

• Traditional underwater optical imaging struggles with scattering.
• Existing underwater ghost imaging (UGI) is limited to grayscale/RGB and lacks multidimensional data.
• UGI offers anti-scattering benefits but requires improved performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate underwater scattering effects on spectral-polarization ghost imaging.
• Develop a novel algorithm to improve UGI reconstruction in scattering conditions.
• Enhance multidimensional information recovery for underwater targets.

Main Methods:

• Snapshot spectral-polarization ghost imaging technique.
• Development of a descattering reconstruction algorithm utilizing global mean neighborhood filtering.
• Experimental validation of the proposed algorithm against existing methods.

Main Results:

• The proposed descattering algorithm significantly improves reconstruction performance in scattering environments.
• High-fidelity spectral and polarization information is successfully recovered.
• Demonstrated superior performance compared to commonly used reconstruction algorithms.

Conclusions:

• Spectral-polarization ghost imaging with the new algorithm effectively mitigates underwater scattering.
• The method shows significant potential for underwater target detection, environmental monitoring, and marine exploration.
• Advances UGI capabilities for complex underwater scenarios.