Video surveillance with speckle imaging

• US 20040005098A1
• Filed: 06/30/2003
• Published: 01/08/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC (Government of the United States of America)
• Original Assignee: Regents of the University of California (University of California)
• Inventors: Brase, James M., Carrano, Carmen J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,245,742 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/254
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20056 Discrete and fast Fourier transform, [DFT, FFT]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30212 Military
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30232 Surveillance
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/10 using non-spatial domain filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/50 using two or more images, e.g. averaging or subtraction
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/73 Deblurring; Sharpening

Abstract

A surveillance system looks through the atmosphere along a horizontal or slant path. Turbulence along the path causes blurring. The blurring is corrected by speckle processing short exposure images recorded with a camera. The exposures are short enough to effectively freeze the atmospheric turbulence. Speckle processing is used to recover a better quality image of the scene.

Claims

1. A surveillance apparatus for improving resolution and/or contrast in surveillance images received over a horizontal or slant path having atmospheric aberrations comprising:

a camera for capturing said surveillance images,

optics for focusing and/or enlarging said surveillance images, said optics operatively connected to said camera and directed along said horizontal or slant path,

a computer system operatively connected to said camera for producing short exposures of said surveillance images and for speckle processing said short exposures and improving resolution and/or contrast in said surveillance images.

2. The surveillance apparatus of claim 1, wherein said computer system utilizes speckle processing of small subregions of said short exposures and tiles said subregions back together.

3. The surveillance apparatus of claim 1, wherein said computer system effectively freezes, said atmospheric aberrations and utilizes said speckle processing to recover a diffraction limited image of said surveillance images.

4. The surveillance apparatus of claim 1, wherein said computer system provides a sequence of said surveillance images, provides image registration, provides image tiling producing tiles, applies apodization to each said tile, speckle processes each said tile, and assembles said surveillance images by processing said tiles.

5. The surveillance apparatus of claim 1, wherein said camera is a digital camera.

6. The surveillance apparatus of claim 1, wherein said camera is a video camera.

7. The surveillance apparatus of claim 1, wherein said camera is a CCD camera.

8. The surveillance apparatus of claim 1, wherein said optics is a telescope.

9. A surveillance apparatus for correcting atmospheric blurring in a surveillance image recorded over a horizontal or slant path, comprising:

a camera for recording said surveillance image,

optics for focusing and/or enlarging said surveillance image, said optics operatively connected to said camera and directed along said horizontal or slant path,

a computer system operatively connected to said camera for producing short exposures of said surveillance image and for speckle processing said short exposures and correcting atmospheric blurring in said surveillance image.

10. The surveillance apparatus of claim 9, wherein said computer system obtains an estimate of the said surveillance image from a time series of short exposures of said surveillance image by estimating both the Fourier magnitude and phase of said surveillance image independently and inverse transforming said Fourier magnitude and phase.

11. A surveillance system for improving the quality of surveillance images received over a horizontal or slant path having atmospheric aberrations, comprising:

camera means for capturing said surveillance images,

means for focusing said surveillance images, said means operatively connected to said camera means and positioned for focusing along said horizontal or slant path,

means operatively connected to said camera means for producing short exposures of said surveillance images, and

means for speckle processing said short exposures and improving the quality of said surveillance images.

12. The surveillance system of claim 11, wherein said means for speckle processing said short exposures comprises means for speckle processing small subregions of said short exposures and tiling said subregions back together.

13. The surveillance system of claim 12, wherein said means for speckle processing said short exposures comprises means for effectively freezing said atmospheric aberrations, enabling said means for speckle processing to recover a diffraction limited image of said surveillance images.