High-resolution imaging through strong atmospheric turbulence

We propose the use of an aperture diverse imaging system for high-resolution imaging through strong atmospheric turbulence. The system has two channels. One channel partitions the aperture into a set of annular apertures that provide a set of images of the target at different spatial resolutions. The other channel feeds an imaging Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor with a small number of sub-apertures. The combined imagery from this setup is processed using a blind restoration algorithm that captures the inherent temporal correlations in the observed atmospheric wave fronts. This approach shows significant promise for providing high-fidelity imagery for observations acquired through strong atmospheric turbulence. The approach also allows for the separation of the phase perturbations from different layers of the atmosphere. This characteristic offers potential for the accurate restoration of images with fields of view substantially larger than the isoplanatic angle.