title: Turbulence strength estimation from an arbitrary set of atmospherically degraded images.
abstract: In remote sensing, atmospheric turbulence and aerosols usually limit the image quality. For many practical cases, turbulence is shown to be dominant, especially for horizontal close-to-earth imaging in hot environments. In a horizontal long-range imaging, it is usually impractical to calculate path-averaged refractive index structure constant C(2)(n) (which characterizes the turbulence strength) with conventional equipment. We propose a method for estimating C(2)(n) from the available atmospherically degraded video sequence by calculating temporal intensity fluctuations in spatially high variance areas. Experimental comparison with C(2)(n) measurements using a scintillometer shows reliable estimation results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electro-Optics Engineering, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zamek
authors.forename: Yitzhak
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yitzhaky