Prediction and performance measures of atmospheric disturbances on an airborne imaging platform

A series of airborne imaging experiments have been conducted on the island of Maui. The imaging platform was a Twin Otter aircraft, which circled ground target sites. The typical platform altitude was 3000 meters, with a slant range to the target of 9000 meters. This experiment was performed during the day using solar illuminated target buildings, and at night with spotlights used to simulate point sources. Imaging system performance predictions were calculated using standard atmospheric turbulence models, and aircraft boundary layer models. Several different measurement approaches were then used to estimate the actual system performance, and make comparisons with the calculations.