Imaging polarimeter development and applications

Recent interest in the utility of polarimetry for military and commercial applications has led to the development of many different imaging polarimetric systems. Much of the attention has focused on time-sequential acquisition systems. These systems use a rotating retarder or polarizer with data acquisition times that range anywhere from 10 to 100 seconds. This length of time is needed to capture the required frames of data used to construct a polarimetric image. Consequently, scene changes during data collection will either induce false polarization effects or induce mis- registration effects. These can occur in scenes where the target, background or sky is changing intensity rapidly or in cases where the target or sensor is in motion. To overcome these limitations SY Technology Inc. is developing and testing a 4 camera polarimetric imaging system capable of simultaneously capturing the needed frames to produce a full-stokes polarimetric image. The system operates in the visible to near IR spectrum and is capable of a 25Hz Stokes image frame rate. This paper will summarize the design, components and calibration of a 4 camera polarimetric system.