Review and evaluation of recent advancements in image dehazing techniques for vision improvement and visualization

Abstract

Vision gets obscured in adverse weather conditions, such as heavy downpours, dense fog, haze, snowfall, etc., which increase the number of road accidents yearly. Modern methodologies are being developed at various academics and laboratories to enhance visibility in such adverse weather with the help of technologies. We review different dehazing techniques in many applications, such as outdoor surveillance, underwater navigation, intelligent transportation systems, object detection, etc. Dehazing is achieved in four primary steps: the capture of hazy images, estimation of atmospheric light with transmission map, image enhancement, and restoration. These four dehazing procedures allow for a step-by-step method for resolving the complicated haze removal issue. Furthermore, it also explores the limitations of existing deep learning-based methods with the available datasets and the challenges of the algorithms for enhancing visibility in adverse weather. Reviewed techniques reveal gaps in the case of remote sensing, satellite, and telescopic imaging. In the experimental analysis of various image dehazing approaches, one can learn the effectiveness of each phase in the image dehazing process and create more effective dehazing techniques.