We present a comparative study involving five distinctly different polarimetric imaging platforms that are designed to record calibrated Stokes images (and associated polarimetric products) in either the MidIR or LWIR spectral regions. The data set used in this study was recorded during April 14-18, 2008, at the Russell Tower Measurement Facility, Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, AL. Four of the five camera systems were designed to operate in the LWIR (approx. 8-12μm), and used either cooled mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) focal-plane-arrays (FPA), or a near-room temperature microbolometer. The lone MidIR polarimetric sensor was based on a liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooled indium antimonide (InSb) FPA, resulting in an approximate wavelength response of 3-5μm. The selection of cameras was comprised of the following optical designs: a LWIR "super-pixel," or division-of-focal plane (DoFP) sensor; two LWIR spinning-achromatic-retarder (SAR) based sensors; one LWIR division-of-amplitude (DoAM) sensor; and one MidIR division-of-aperture (DoA) sensor. Cross-sensor comparisons were conducted by examining calibrated Stokes images (e.g., S0, S1, S2, and degree-of-linear polarization (DOLP)) recorded by each sensor for a given target at approximately the same test periods to ensure that data sets were recorded under similar atmospheric conditions. Target detections are applied to the image set for each polarimetric sensor for further comparison, i.e., conventional receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and an effective contrast ratio are considered.

Date Published: 24 April 2010
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 7672, Polarization: Measurement, Analysis, and Remote Sensing IX, 767205 (24 April 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.850341

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7672:
Polarization: Measurement, Analysis, and Remote Sensing IX
David B. Chenault; Dennis H. Goldstein, Editor(s)