受水体自身吸收和悬浮颗粒强散射的作用,水下光学成像存在严重的“帷幔效应”,造成场景中目标细节信息被淹没在背景散射光中,图像对比度大幅降低。由于目标和背景信息所具有的唯一性和差异性,从光场的偏振特性发展出的水下偏振成像技术可以对水下背景散射光进行有效抑制,利用目标信息光与背景散射光的偏振差异特性将二者有效分离,实现清晰化成像。目前,水下偏振成像技术发展迅猛,已在众多领域具有广泛应用和全新的研究成果。系统地介绍了水下偏振成像技术的基本原理、实现算法和成像效果,并依据现有技术的优缺点对水下偏振成像技术的未来发展进行分析展望。

Due to the absorption of water body and strong scattering of suspended particles, there is a serious “curtain effect” in underwater optical imaging, which causes the details of the target in the scene to be submerged in the background scattered light, and the image contrast is greatly reduced. Due to the uniqueness and difference of target information and background information, the underwater polarization imaging technology developed from the polarization characteristics of light field can effectively suppress the scattering light of underwater background. The polarization differences between the target information light and the background scattered light are used to separate them effectively and realize the clear imaging. At present, underwater polarization imaging technology is developing rapidly, which has been widely used in many fields and new research results. This paper systematically introduces the basic principle, implementation algorithm, and imaging effect of underwater polarization imaging technology, and analyzes and prospects the future development of underwater polarization imaging technology according to the advantages and disadvantages of existing technologies.