A profiling scheme for algorithms and applications to enable a methodological evaluation of turbulence mitigation methods

Atmospheric turbulence causes scintillation, spatial and temporal blurring as well as global and local image motion and is responsible for geometric distortions in image data. The approaches that can be found in literature for correcting turbulence-related impairments of image quality are just as varied as the prevailing environmental and turbulence conditions can be. There is a variety of conceivable applications for such correction methods. Consequently, it is difficult to determine a suitable taxonomy that can cover all possible application cases. Therefore, in this paper a tabular approach is proposed on the basis of which similar assumptions can be summarized in order to make algorithms for typical scenarios comparable with each other. A profiling scheme is introduced for this purpose where points are assigned to a selected (and variable) number of criteria according to their priority in a given context. This point system has a dual function, enabling a given application to be systematically described in terms of its requirements as well as a given algorithm to be characterized in terms of its performance parameters. Thus, corresponding (point) profiles are obtained for applications as well as for correction methods, which can be used for meaningful comparison and methodological evaluation of the respective correction results.