Turbulent Image Restoration in Atmosphere with Cyclopean Processing via Binocular Fusion

Abstract The outstanding issue to overcoming atmospheric turbulence on distant imaging is a fundamental interest and technological challenge. We propose a novel scenario and technique to restore the optical image in turbulent environmental by referring to Cyclopean image with binocular vision. With human visual intelligence, image distortion resulting from the turbulence is shown to be substantially suppressed. Numerical simulation results taking into account of the atmospheric turbulence, optical image system, image sensors, display and binocular vision perception are presented to demonstrate the robustness of the image restoration, which is compared with a single channel planar optical imaging and sensing. Experiment involving binocular telescope, image recording and the stereo-image display is conducted and good agreement is obtained between the simulation with perceptive experience. A natural extension of the scenario is to enhance the capability of anti-vibration or anti-shaking for general optical imaging with Cyclopean image.