An assessment is made of the impact of a thermally bloomed atmosphere on target image quality. The steady-state phase perturbations due to blooming and the effects of the distortion on return wave-fronts are determined using a physical optics propagation code. The wavelength of the return radiation used to sense the distortions is shown to be an important consideration in the stability of the return image. The return targets images for several realistic scenarios are reconstructed based on the incoherent point spread function for each isoplanatic region of the object (target) plane. Special requirements of the back propagation algorithm are discussed with respect to "point source" geometry, tilt, tilt sensitivity, and isoplanatism criterion. The wave optics approach is shown to agree with the experimental results in regards to image blur and distortion. The stability of the reconstructed images is discussed using merit functions defining the amount of blur, distortion, and degradation in peak irradiance. The merit functions are shown to correlate well with the scenario distortion number used to define the degree of blooming induced in the forward propagation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/281980 |
| Date | January 1981 |
| Creators | Nahrstedt, David Alan |
| Contributors | Shannon, Robert |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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