Super-resolution reconstruction for extremely low-light imaging by using intensified CCD or CMOS camera

Hui Zhao; Xuewu Fan; Mingyang Yang; Yue Pan; Baopeng Li; Minrui Zhang

doi:10.1117/12.2641587

4 January 2023 Super-resolution reconstruction for extremely low-light imaging by using intensified CCD or CMOS camera

Hui Zhao, Xuewu Fan, Mingyang Yang, Yue Pan, Baopeng Li, Minrui Zhang

Proceedings Volume 12317, Optoelectronic Imaging and Multimedia Technology IX; 123170L (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2641587
Event: SPIE/COS Photonics Asia, 2022, Online Only

Conference Poster

Abstract

It is difficult for normal CCD or CMOS camera to obtain high quality images under extremely low-light conditions for example the new moon or the quarter moon because the photons arriving at the detector are so few that signal to noise ratio (SNR) is much lower than what is necessary to resolve finer details in the nighttime scenario. To solve this problem, the intensified CCD or CMOS camera is adopted and the few photons is amplified to improve the SNR a lot. However, the intensifier is mainly composed of the cathode, MCP (Micro-channel-plate) and fluorescent screen and this complex structure and the multiple photoelectric conversion during the photon amplification process will lead to a big equivalent pitch size, which degrades the spatial resolution. Therefore in this manuscript, by improving the classical iterative back projection (IBP) algorithm a super-resolution reconstruction algorithm is proposed. By fusing multiple quite noisy lowlight images having sub-pixel displacements between each other, both the spatial resolution and the SNR could be enhanced. In the in-lab experiments, the spatial resolution can be increased to nearly 1.8 times the original one. Besides that, the increment in SNR bigger than 6dB and 9dB could be obtained for the quarter moon and the new moon light condition respectively. The out-door experiments show the similar results and besides that by fusing sub-pixel shifted low-light images corresponding to different low-light conditions together, the reconstructed high-resolution images will have even better visual performance.

Citation Download Citation

Hui Zhao, Xuewu Fan, Mingyang Yang, Yue Pan, Baopeng Li, and Minrui Zhang "Super-resolution reconstruction for extremely low-light imaging by using intensified CCD or CMOS camera", Proc. SPIE 12317, Optoelectronic Imaging and Multimedia Technology IX, 123170L (4 January 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2641587

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