Fast sampling based image reconstruction algorithm for sheared-beam imaging

Abstract

Sheared-beam imaging (SBI) is an unconventional ground-based optical imaging technique. It breaks through the traditional optical imaging concept by using three coherent laser beams, which are laterally displaced at the transmit plane, to illuminate the target, reconstructing the target image from echo signals. However, the echo data sampling of the imaging system is still not fast enough to reconstruct the high resolution and clear image of the target when imaging the target that is at rapidly changing position and attitude. In order to solve this problem, in this work an image reconstruction method is proposed based on five-beam fast sampling. An emitted beam array arranged in the cross shape with a central symmetrical structure is proposed, and the encoding and decoding method of the imaging system are changed. With a single exposure, the echo signals carry more spectrum information of the target, and the number of reconstructed images can be increased from 1 to 8, which quickly suppresses the speckle effect of the reconstructed image. Firstly, the principle of the imaging technique based on fast sampling is presented. Then, an image reconstruction algorithm based on fast sampling is studied. Eight groups of phase differences and amplitude information of the target can be extracted from echo signals. The wavefront phases are solved by the least-squares method, and wavefront amplitude can be obtained by the algebraic operation of speckle amplitude. The target image is reconstructed by the inverse Fourier transform. The simulation results show that comparing with the traditional three-beam image reconstruction method, the sampling times of echo data needed to obtain the same quality image are reduced from 20 to 5, which greatly reduces the sampling times of echo data and improves the sampling rate of echo data.