Deeply seeing through highly turbid water by active polarization imaging

Abstract

We hereby proposed and experimentally demonstrated an active polarization imaging technique, based on wavelength selection, for seeing through highly turbid water where targets are always visually lost. The method was realized by making use of the dependence of light scattering on wavelength in turbid water. Red light illumination was selected to minimize scattering occurring in light propagation and to guarantee accurate estimation of degree of polarization. Experiments demonstrate its contribution to turn targets in highly turbid water from "undetectable" to "detectable."