Hybrid Approach for Image Enhancement of Long Range Electro-optical Surveillance Systems

Abstract

Electro-optical surveillance systems are capable of performing autonomous search, detection and tracking. The system range performance is primarily dependent upon image quality of imaging sensors, which is largely affected by the prevailing atmospheric conditions. Image quality improvement can be achieved by using suitable sensor and digital image enhancement technique with target/background signature knowledge; however their effectiveness varies with the ambient conditions. Besides, there are optical methods to mitigate the degradation caused by atmosphere. A novel hybrid approach for image enhancement has been presented in the proposed work, which uses an optimal combination of optical and digital means to enhance image quality. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.