Ghost Imaging Lidar via Sparsity Constraints in Real Atmosphere

Abstract

We present a series of results acquired at a 2-kilometer distance using our lidar system under several weather conditions, clear, cloudy, light rain, moderately foggy, and night. The experimental results show that ghost imaging lidar via spar-sity constraints can realize imaging in all these weather conditions.

Improving the Imaging Quality of Ghost Imaging Lidar via Sparsity Constraint by Time-Resolved Technique

“…For the 2D GISC lidar, because the bucket detector used to record the scene's reflection signal has no temporal resolution capability, we can only capture the scene's 2D projection image, losing the depth information of scene [11,12]. Compared with the 2D GISC lidar, the 3D GISC lidar can not only obtain an image with a better SNR in the same random measurement number, but also achieve the scene's surface 3D image, which is much more advantageous in capturing the characteristics of the targets and has recently attracted increasing attention in remote sensing [18,19,26,27].…”

“…A recent report on pulse-compression GI lidar via coherent detection demonstrates that high depth resolution can also be obtained by using a long pulsed laser and low-bandwidth single-pixel detectors [27]. For the latter requirement, some spatial light diffusers, such as rotating ground glass disks, digital micro-mirror devices, and spatial light modulators, are used to modulate the spatial information of the light field in a GISC system [11,12,18,22,23,26,28]. However, both the damage threshold and energy utilization of a rotating ground glass disk are the highest [18,28].…”

“…Ghost imaging (GI), as a staring method, can nonlocally image an unknown object by using a single-pixel detector at the object path [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Because all the photons reflected (or transmitted) from the object illuminate the same single-pixel detector, this technique has the capability of being highly sensitive in detection, and in recent years, it has aroused increasing interest in remote sensing for the development of a new imaging lidar [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. In 2009, when the range from the source plane to the object plane was larger than the distance between the source plane and the camera plane at the reference path, GI could also be obtained, which provided a feasible approach to remote sensing applications [9].…”

“…In 2009, when the range from the source plane to the object plane was larger than the distance between the source plane and the camera plane at the reference path, GI could also be obtained, which provided a feasible approach to remote sensing applications [9]. Based on the idea of Reference [9], a two-dimensional ghost imaging lidar via sparsity constraint (2D GISC lidar) was invented, and high-resolution 2D imaging was experimentally demonstrated in 2012 [11,12]. Later, when the time-resolved technique was used to measure the target's reflection signals, we proposed a three-dimensional ghost imaging lidar via sparsity constraint (3D GISC lidar) system and obtained 3D imagery of a scene at a range of approximately 1.0 km [18].…”

Pulse-compression ghost imaging lidar via coherent detection

“…Due to the capability of high detection sensitivity, GI has a great application prospect in remote sensing and some kinds of GI imaging lidar system have been proposed [8,9,10,11]. Recently, a pulsed three-dimensional (3D) GI lidar was invented and high-resolution 3D image of a natural scene at about 1.0 km range was reported [12].…”