Anisoplanatic performance of horizontal-path speckle imaging

We have previously demonstrated and reported on the use of sub-field speckle processing for the enhancement of both near and far-range surveillance imagery of people and vehicles that have been degraded by atmospheric turbulence(1,2,3). We have obtained near diffraction-limited imagery in many cases and have shown dramatic image quality improvement in other cases. As it is possible to perform only a limited number of experiments in a limited number of conditions, we have developed a computer simulation capability to aid in the prediction of imaging performance in a wider variation of conditions. Our simulation capability includes the ability to model extended scenes in distributed turbulence. Of great interest is the effect of the isoplanatic angle on speckle imaging performance as well as on single deformable mirror and multiconjugate adaptive optics system performance. These angles are typically quite small over horizontal and slant paths. Ibis paper will begin to explore these issues which are important for predicting the performance of both passive and active horizontal and slant-path imaging systems.