Numerical Simulation of Tomographic Reconstruction for the Study of Turbulence Using Optical Wavefront Sensor Measurements.

Abstract

The optical quality of a coherent beam passing through a turbulent flow layer can be severely degraded by phase errors. The principle goal of this research is to model the use of wavefront sensor measurements and computed tomography to reconstruct refractive index distributions of transparent objects for the study of turbulent flows. Tomography is the processing of measurements of one-dimensional line integrals through a two-dimensional function to reconstruct a two-dimensional estimate of the function. A least-squares wavefront phase reconstructor is modeled using Zernike polynomials and triangle functions as elementary functions for the reconstructor. Two tomographic reconstruction algorithms are implemented: (1) iterative reconstruction and (2) filtered back-projection. Through numerical simulation, the effects of undersampling and limited wavefront sensor resolution are studied. Distorted wavefront data are generated by performing line integrals through known objects with different numbers and ranges of view angle. Wavefront reconstruction is applied using varying resolution. Two tomographic reconstruction methods are employed and comparisons are made with the original known objects. Results show that a least-squares wavefront reconstructor using triangle functions provides better results. Increasing the number and range of view angles generally improves the quality of the tomographic reconstruction. Furthermore, iterative tomographic reconstruction techniques prove superior when limited data are available. Optical tomography, Computed tomography, Wavefront reconstruction, Flow visualization, Three-dimensional reconstruction

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1993
Accession Number
ADA273851

Entities

People

  • Robert L. Johnson

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Detectors
  • Flow
  • Flow Visualization
  • Integrals
  • Measurement
  • Refractive Index
  • Simulations
  • Three Dimensional
  • Tomography
  • Triangles
  • Turbulent Flow
  • Two Dimensional
  • Wavefronts
  • X-Ray Computed Tomography

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Approximation Theory.
  • Medical Imaging.
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.