Abstract
The impact of using an off-axis pulsed laser backscatter reference for compensation of an imaging system is evaluated. For low backscatter altitudes imaging is only weakly affected when the beacon is not in the same direction as the object being studied. In fact, a misalignment of several isoplanatic patch sizes causes only a minor degradation in performance. For high backscatter altitudes the degradation is quite significant once the angular misalignment is approximately an isoplanatic patch size. For the special case of an angular misalignment of 50 μrad with the HV5/7 (Hufnagel–Valley) turbulence model (the isoplanatic patch size ϑ0 = 7 μrad) the results for all backscatter altitudes that are considered (5, 10, 20, 40, and 90 km) are almost identical. Performance is hardly degraded for backscatter altitudes of 5 and 10 km; however, when the backscatter altitude is increased to 20 km or higher, significant degradation results.
© 1994 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Glenn A. Tyler
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(1) 325-338 (1994)
Glenn A. Tyler
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(1) 409-424 (1994)
David L. Fried and John F. Belsher
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(1) 277-287 (1994)