Real-time image haze removal using an aperture-division polarimetric camera

Abstract

Polarimetric dehazing methods have been proven to be effective in enhancing the quality of images acquired in turbid media. We report a new full-Stokes polarimetric camera, which is based on the division of aperture structure. We design a kind of automatic polarimetric dehazing algorithm and load it into the field programmable gate array (FPGA) modules of our designed polarimetric camera, achieving a real-time image haze removal with an output rate of 25 fps. We demonstrate that the image quality can be significantly improved together with a good color restoration. This technique might be attractive in a range of real-time outdoor imaging applications, such as navigation, monitoring, and remote sensing.

Generalized Polarimetric Dehazing Method Based on Low-Pass Filtering in Frequency Domain

“…As a contrast, we don't need to set the bias parameter in the current method, but good dehazed result can be obtained. Figure 7a is one of the original polarized images captured with our designed division-of-aperture type polarimetric imaging camera [16]. The transmittance of the imaging lens is not calibrated, and the surrounding pixels of the sensor may be a little darker than the center.…”

“…Others are mainly based on a physical degradation model, which is time consuming because it is difficult to estimate appropriate radiance attenuation parameters in one hazy image. By contrast, polarimetric dehazing techniques use several polarized images to estimate the parameters of the scattering light, which have advantages of better image quality and higher efficiency [16,17].…”

Review of passive polarimetric dehazing methods

“…So, the Stokes vector-based polarimetric dehazing method has attracted considerable attention. 50,51,[58][59][60]79 The Stokes vector comprises four parameters. It represents the polarization property of light on the basis of the intensity information, which makes the representation and detection of polarized light much easier.…”

“…The imaging polarimeter is a device that can obtain four different linear polarization images simultaneously (linear-Stokes polarimeter) or three linear polarization images and one circular polarization image (full-Stokes polarimeter) with optimal designed structures. 91 The polarimeters are usually based on different technological aspects, such as division of time, [92][93][94][95] division of amplitude, 96 division of aperture, 60,97 division of focal plane, [98][99][100] and Fourier-based. [101][102][103][104] The imaging polarimeter has been thoroughly reviewed in Ref.…”

Saliency‐based dark channel prior model for single image haze removal

“…Many applications such as navigation, tracking, surveillance and so on, rely on the quality of images obtained by the visual systems, including the visibility and detailed information. However, sometimes fog, mist and haze reduce atmospheric visibility and thus the image quality is degraded [1,2]. Degraded images usually have low contrast and fide colours, and thus have bad effects on object tracking, face recognition, and intelligent surveillance [3].…”