Polarimetric Observable based Optical Remote Sensing Systems for Heterogeneous Layered Scattering Environments

Abstract

The high-performance remote sensing imaging is always prevented by scattering environments, especially the scattering environments that are heterogeneous along transmitting direction of light, as the evolution of optical field becomes more complicated. To resolve this problem, this paper constructs a polarimetric observable based optical remote sensing system, which is able to represent heterogeneous scattering environments and moreover, identify the studying targets. On the one hand, the Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm and photon-tracking framework are employed to ensure that the proposed model can mimic actual heterogeneous remote sensing environments well. On the other hand, the proposed model takes advantage of polarimetric observables to identify targets by highlighting their physical meaning. The relevant results demonstrate that the proposed method is capable of identifying studying targets at the optical thickness of 7L that is unreachable by other optical methods. From this perspective, this paper provides a practical method to extend the detection distance of remote sensing and improve the detection ability of optical systems, which promotes the development of high-performance target detection in complex remote sensing environments.