Color mixing in targets seen through turbulence

Abstract

We propose a novel imaging technique for assessing turbulence strength based on the color fluctuations of remote targets. Their chromatic changes, due to color mixing produced by the atmospheric optical turbulence, is characterized. We take advantage of a RGB Fourier transform-based color space to analyze the chromatic information on target images; then, through a model of primary color overlays, a chromatic shift measure is defined by the statistical dispersion of pixel colors. It is shown that such color changes can be related to the strength of refractive index fluctuations defined by the structure constant, C2n.