Enhancing the robustness of underwater dehazing by jointly using polarization and the dark channel prior

The scattering of light in water generates a veiling effect in underwater images, which significantly reduces visibility and limits the range of imaging systems, particularly in target detection applications. Several dehazing techniques have been developed based on the assumption that the veil and the scene of interest exhibit distinct physical properties, either colorimetric or polarimetric. However, these approaches tend to lose effectiveness when the underlying assumptions are not met. In this study, we propose a method that jointly exploits both the colorimetric and polarimetric characteristics of the veil to enhance image contrast. The proposed approach is evaluated on <i>in situ</i> images acquired using an underwater imaging system in both passive and active configurations. We demonstrate that our method enables the automatic identification of pixels associated with the veil, facilitating the estimation of its physical properties, and reduces potential ambiguities between the veil and regions of the scene of interest. Experimental results show that our approach achieves performance comparable to conventional techniques while offering improved robustness.