The reconstruction of images distorted by hypersonic turbulence

The author describes a simple image processing technique for reconstruction of target images distorted due to propagation through a turbulent medium. Image processing algorithms based on shifted-average techniques that are used to reconstruct the original image are presented. Once an estimate of the point spread function of the turbulent medium is obtained by observing a target while it is still distant, a relatively small number of images can be used to obtain reconstructed estimates of the approaching target image. Compared to simple averaging, the shifted-average method produces relatively more precise results by using fewer images. The quality of the reconstruction depends on the particular gas combination and on the number of images used by the reconstruction algorithm