When
Where
Title:
Abstract:
Operational conditions frequently degrade infrared imaging systems deployed on aerial vehicles. Platform motion, vibration, and environmental obscurants can significantly reduce both spatial resolution and image contrast. These image degradations limit performance for tasks such as target detection, recognition, and navigation. Standard laboratory tests measure intrinsic sensor performance under controlled conditions, but they often fail to capture these real-world degradation mechanisms. In practice, spatial resolution, sensitivity, and task-based metrics determine overall image quality. Platform-induced motion primarily degrades resolution, while environmental obscurants such as smoke, fog, and dust often reduce both contrast transmission and resolution.
This dissertation presents experimental and analytical methods to evaluate imaging system performance in realistic airborne operating conditions. It develops techniques to obtain comparable laboratory and field MTF measurements, enabling consistent evaluation of resolution across environments. The work analyzes motion-induced degradation through theoretical models of linear motion blur and validates the effects of different aerial platforms with flight-test data. It also details a method to estimate performance loss directly from onboard motion sensors.
Environmental effects are examined through the development of tabletop degraded visual environment (DVE) chambers capable of simulating smoke, fog, dust, and rain in a controlled laboratory setting. Testing across multiple infrared spectral bands using MTF, contrast degradation, and targeting task performance (TTP) metrics reveals how specific obscurants degrade image quality. These contributions link laboratory measurements with operational imaging performance, directly supporting the design and deployment of airborne imaging systems in harsh conditions.
Committee:
Dr. Ron Driggers (Chair)
Dr. Mark Spencer
Dr. David Haefner