Targetless characterization of optical blurring from microphysical scattering

Atmospheric fogs degrade optical signals via the scattering and absorption of light, making it difficult to recover information from our surroundings. I have developed a low SWaP technique which measures the angular distribution of light scattered by fog to help recover degraded optical signals. I demonstrate improved recovery of high spatial frequency optical information through fog by characterizing the point spread function (PSF) of the aerosol environment. To do so I first pass a collimated beam through an experimentally generated fog-analogue. An f-theta lens then collects the scattered light and transforms its angular scattering profile into the linear domain, mapping the beam onto a focal plane. This angular map can then be used to calculate the anticipated PSF of the beam at an arbitrary stand-off distance. I then use the modelled PSF to deblur images of a resolution target, increasing the resolution of the blurred images by much as 26%.