Degree of polarization estimation in the presence of nonuniform illumination and additive Gaussian noise

François Goudail (1) , Mehdi Alouini (2) , Daniel Dolfi (2)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Scop
2 Thales Research and Technology [Palaiseau]

Within the general framework of active imaging we address the degree of polarization (DOP) estimation in the presence of additive Gaussian detector noise. We first study the performance of standard DOP estimators and propose a method to increase estimation precision using physically relevant a priori information. We then consider the realistic case of nonuniform illumination distribution. We derive the Cramer-Rao lower bound and determine a profile likelihood-based estimator. We demonstrate the efficiency of this new estimator and compare.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

François Goudail, Mehdi Alouini, Daniel Dolfi. Degree of polarization estimation in the presence of nonuniform illumination and additive Gaussian noise. Journal of the Optical Society of America. A Optics, Image Science, and Vision, 2008, 25 (4), pp.919-929. ⟨hal-00746712⟩