Image enhancement system and method

• US 8,811,768 B2
• Filed: 05/22/2012
• Issued: 08/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: United States Secretary of the Army
• Original Assignee: The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Army
• Inventors: Meyers, Ronald Everett, Deacon, Keith Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): ENTEZARI, MICHELLE M
• Application Number:
  US13/477,890
• Publication Number:
  US 20120229668A1
• Time in Patent Office: 819 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 382/274
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4053 based on super-resolution, i.e. the output image resolution being higher than the sensor resolution
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/70 Photonic quantum communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/951 by using two or more images to influence resolution, frame rate or aspect ratio

Abstract

A method and system for imaging information comprising at least one processor for processing information; a light source for illuminating first and second locations; a spatial receiver located at the second location for receiving the illuminating light comprising an array of pixel locations for detecting high resolution spatial information concerning the illuminating light; the spatial receiver being operatively connected, to the at least one processor and operating to transmit high resolution spatial information correlated to specific intervals of time to the processor; the at least one receiver operatively connected to the processor(s) and operative to receive light reflected from a subject and operating to transmit low resolution spatial information to the processor correlated to specific intervals of time; the processor operating to correlate a response by the at least one receiver with spatial information derived from the spatial receiver at correlating time intervals to create a high resolution image.

Claims

1. A system for imaging information comprising;

at least one processor for processing information;

a light source for illuminating first and second locations;

a spatial receiver located at the second location for receiving illumination from the light source comprising an array of pixel locations for detecting high resolution spatial information concerning the illumination;

the spatial receiver being operatively connected to the at least one processor and operating to transmit high resolution spatial information correlated to specific intervals of time to the processor;

at least one first receiver operative to receive light reflected from a subject, the at least one first receiver being operatively connected to the processor and operating to transmit low resolution spatial information to the processor correlated to specific intervals of time;

the processor operating to correlate a response by the at least one first receiver with spatial information derived from the spatial receiver at a correlating intervals of time to create a high resolution image of the subject.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising a beam splitter, the light from the light source comprising entangled photon pairs, the entangled photon pairs entering the beam splitter being split into the first and second beams, and wherein the at least one first receiver comprises an array of locations with each location having at least one low resolution receiver, the array of locations of at least one low resolution receiver comprising a pixel location.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein for each of the outputs of the at least one first receiver and the spatial receiver measurements in the form of pixel values are taken at specific instances in time, and for each of the first receiver and the spatial receiver the pixel values at each of the pixel locations are added together to form a sum of the pixel values at each pixel location over a predetermined number of measurements and then divided by predetermined number of measurements to form an average value of each pixel at each pixel location for the series of frames for both the spatial receiver and at least one first receiver, and wherein the average pixel values for the spatial receiver and at least one first receiver are multiplied together to form a first product of the averages;

and wherein the pixel values of the spatial receiver measurements taken at specific instances in time are individually multiplied by each of the pixel values at the pixel locations of the first receiver and summed together to form the sum of the product of pixel values of the spatial receiver measurements times each of the pixel values at the pixel locations of the first receiver and then divided by the number of specific instances in time to form a second product of averages, and wherein the first product of averages is subtracted from second product of averages to form the enhanced image.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the outputs of the spatial receiver and the at least one first receiver are optimized pursuant to a compressed sensing algorithm to give an intermediate image and the intermediate images are summed together to produce an enhanced image.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the outputs of the spatial receiver and the at least one first receiver are optimized to create a G⁽²⁾ intermediate image wherein different weights are assigned to different G⁽²⁾ intermediate images based upon predetermined criteria prior to computing the high resolution image of the subject.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein each of the low resolution pixels are treated as nonspatial information to create a G⁽²⁾ image and the generation of G⁽²⁾ images is performed over the entire set of pixels of the low resolution array of receivers and each low-resolution G⁽²⁾ image is accumulated into a composite G⁽²⁾ image to produce the resolved image.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein prior to generating an intermediate G⁽²⁾ image, the low-resolution pixel value can be tested to determine by a predetermined criteria if a G⁽²⁾ image should be computed using that low-resolution pixel.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the light reflected from the subject was influenced by the effects of turbulence or bad or changing weather.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one first receiver is one of a camera, scanning detector, or charge coupled device.

10. A method for image improvement comprising the following steps not necessarily in sequential order:

providing a series of low resolution frames of a given region of interest;

providing a series of high resolution images of a light source;

determining the value of each pixel at each location within each high resolution frame to form first arrays of pixel values;

determining the value of each pixel at each location within each low resolution frame to form a second array of pixel values;

determining the product of the first array of pixel values and the second array of pixel values;

determining the sum of the products by adding together the products of first array of pixel values and second array of pixel values for a series of frames;

determining the average of the sum of products by dividing the sum of products by the number of frames in the series of frames to form an average high resolution frame times low resolution pixel product;

determining the average value of each pixel at each pixel location for the series of high resolution frames to form a third array of average pixel values;

determining the average values at each pixel location for the series of low resolution frames to form a fourth array;

for each low resolution pixel location in the second array;

determining a fifth array of products of the low resolution pixel location times each pixel in each high resolution image for the series of frames;

summing the third arrays for the series of frames and dividing by the number of frames in the series to form a sixth array comprising the average product of the low resolution pixel location times the high resolution frames;

determining the product of the third array times the value at the low resolution pixel location of the fourth array to form a seventh array;

determining an intermediate image for the pixel location in the low resolution frame by subtracting the seventh array from the sixth array to form an eighth array;

summing together the eighth arrays to provide a final composite high resolution image.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the step of determining the value of each pixel at each location within each low resolution frame comprises using a digital camera.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the step of determining the value of each pixel at each location within each low resolution frame comprises illuminating a subject and determining the amount of light reflected from the subject by detecting the reflected illumination using at least one receiver.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the outputs of the high resolution frames and the low resolution frames are optimized to create an intermediate image wherein different weights are assigned to different intermediate images based upon predetermined criteria prior to computing the high resolution image of the subject.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein the outputs of the high resolution frames and the low resolution frames are optimized pursuant to a compressed sensing algorithm to give an intermediate image and the intermediate images are summed together to produce an enhanced image.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the light source comprises utilizing a light source of entangled photons which are split into first and second beams, and wherein the step of providing a series of high resolution images of a light source comprises using a spatial receiver to receive the first light beam and the step of providing a series of low resolution frames of a given region of interest comprises illuminating the low resolution frames with the second beam.

16. The method of claim 10 wherein prior to generating a low-resolution pixel G⁽²⁾ image, the low-resolution pixel value can be tested to determine by a predetermined criteria if a G⁽²⁾ image should be computed using that low-resolution pixel.

17. The method of claim 10 wherein the step of providing a series of frames of a given region of interest comprises computing the average overall intensity of a plurality of frames of the low resolution detector array and arranging the frames of the low resolution and high resolution detector arrays into two sets;

the first set containing the frames having frame intensities greater than the average intensity of the pixels in the low resolution array and the second set containing frames having intensity less than the average intensity of the pixels in the low resolution array;

both the high resolution frames and low resolution frames being indexed by a similar time;

each of the first and second sets being processed by repeating the following steps for each low resolution pixel location in the first and second sets;

determining a fifth array of products of the low resolution pixel location times each pixel in each high resolution image for the series of frames;

summing the third arrays for the series of frames and dividing by the number of frames in the series to form a sixth array comprising the average product of the low resolution pixel location times the high resolution frames;

determining the product of the third array times the value at the low resolution pixel location of the fourth array to form a seventh array;

determining an intermediate image for the pixel location in the low resolution frame by subtracting the seventh array from the sixth array to form an eighth array;

summing together the eighth arrays to provide a final composite high resolution image;

to thereby obtain first and second results;

further refined images are then produced by adding or subtracting weighted first and second results;

the weighting being correlated to the number of frames in the above mean and below mean sets respectively.

18. A system of enhancing a series of low resolution images by using high resolution images of an illuminating source taken concurrently in time with low resolution images that are illuminated by the illuminating source comprising:

at least one processor;

a high resolution spatial detector;

at least one low resolution detector comprising an array of pixel locations adapted to record a series of low resolution images;

a light source which emits entangled photons pairs, the first photons of the photon pairs being reflected off a target to into an array of pixel locations to create a series of low resolution images using the at least one low resolution detector;

the second photons of the photon pairs being inputted into a high resolution image spatial detector;

the second photons not being reflected from or passing through the target;

coincidence circuitry that transmits the measurements from the array of pixel locations and the high resolution spatial detector to the at least one processor at specific instances in time;

whereby the at least one processor enhances the low resolution images recorded at the array of pixel locations using the first photons by combining the low resolution measurements from the at least one low resolution detector with the series of high resolution measurements detected by the high resolution spatial detector using the second photons.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the at least one low resolution detector comprises one of a photo detector at each location in the array of pixel locations or a digital camera comprising an array of pixel locations and wherein the system further comprises at least one memory operatively associated with the at least one processor for the storage of the at least one low resolution image.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the at least one processor performs the following steps, not necessarily in the sequence recited:

processing at least one low resolution image from the low resolution detector;

processing at least one high resolution image of a light source from the spatial detector taken concurrently in time with the recording of the at least one low resolution image;

the processing of the at least one low resolution image and the at least one high resolution image being such that there is only one photon counted on a pixel in both the at least one low resolution detector and the high resolution spatial detector frame at the same time increment time;

determining the value of each pixel at each location at each time increment within each high resolution image to form first arrays of pixel values;

determining the value of each pixel at each location at each time increment within each low resolution image to form a second array of pixel values;

for each low resolution pixel location in the second array;

determining a third array of time coincident values for the low resolution pixel location of the second arrays and each pixel in each high resolution image of the first arrays of pixel values; and

summing together the third arrays to provide a final composite high resolution image.