Autofocusing in digital holography based on an adaptive genetic algorithm

Abstract

In digital holography (DH), determining the reconstruction distance is critical to the quality of the reconstructed image. However, traditional focal plane detection methods require considerable time investment to reconstruct and evaluate holograms at multiple distances. To address this inefficiency, this paper proposes a fast and accurate autofocusing method based on an adaptive genetic algorithm. This method only needs to find several reconstruction distances in the search area as an initial population, and then adaptively optimize the reconstruction distance through iteration to determine the optimal focal plane in the search area. In addition, an off-axis digital holographic optical system was used to capture the holograms of the USAF resolution test target and the coin. The simulation and experimental results indicated that, compared with the traditional autofocusing, the proposed method can reduce the computation time by about 70% and improve the focal plane accuracy by up to 0.5 mm.