Real-time Image Restoration through Walsh Filtering

Prefaced with a brief survey of the state of the art in restoration techniques for atmospherically degraded imagery, this paper presents an analytical approach pertinent to the studies on the effects of wavefront distortion and compensation of the latter through a finite number of corrector elements. Our method is essentially based on an analysis in terms of Walsh functions which form a closed set of normal orthogonal functions and are quite appropriate to the problem. Some numerical results on phase compensation through a finite number of corrector elements are given. The analytical technique and the results point towards the feasibility of a new restoration scheme enabling one to replace the usually conceived scheme of transverse segmentation by one with a finite array of correctors placed longitudinally. The scheme is briefly outlined.