Atmospheric Refraction Error and Its Compensation for Passive Optical Sensors

A wide range of passive optical sensor applications often require the sensor to operate within the atmosphere while the objects it examines are outside the atmosphere. The refraction of light by the earth's atmosphere becomes a significant error source when the objects are at low elevation angl...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dunn, K P
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
AIR
ATMOSPHERE MODELS
Atmospheric Physics
ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION
COMPENSATION
ERRORS
Optical Detection and Detectors
OPTICAL DETECTORS
PASSIVE SYSTEMS
PE63304A
RAY TRACING
REFRACTIVE INDEX
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Summary:A wide range of passive optical sensor applications often require the sensor to operate within the atmosphere while the objects it examines are outside the atmosphere. The refraction of light by the earth's atmosphere becomes a significant error source when the objects are at low elevation angle. When the measurement accuracy at low elevation angle is important for the sensor application, an accurate refraction compensation scheme is needed. In this report, we provide an algorithm that will compensate the error when the object is at a finite range from the sensor. Sensitivities of compensation errors to object range error, atmospheric model mismatch, and possible statistical variations about a given atmospheric model are also provided.