Imaging in turbid water based on 3D Ghost Imaging

Obtaining a clear image of the underwater environment with classical imaging methods is still a challenging task due to the large amounts of noise caused by absorption and scattering nature of water and complex light interactions. By contrast, ghost imaging (GI) is a second-order correlation imaging technique, which has the disturbance-free ability in severe backscattering and high absorption conditions. In this paper, a physical model of three-dimensional ghost imaging (3DGI) through turbid water was set up based on laser detection and ranging (LADAR) and GI system, which considering the light-field transmission, the effects of absorption and scattering of water and the interaction between light field. Then the quality of 3DGI with different turbid water conditions and over different propagation distances was investigated by numerical calculation. The results show that the proposed 3DGI scheme is capable to reconstruct the object of long-distance in highly turbid underwater environments, and the reconstruction quality is closely related to the turbidity of the water and transmission distance. This work provides a reference to underwater 3DGI application, and maybe a better alternative strategy for underwater imaging.