Polynomial Wigner?Ville distribution-based method for direct phase derivative estimation from optical fringes

This paper proposes a polynomial Wigner–Ville distribution-based method to directly estimate phase derivative from a single fringe pattern. In the proposed method, we evaluate the polynomial Wigner–Ville distribution along each row/column of the given fringe pattern. The peak of the polynomial Wigner–Ville distribution is used as the phase derivative estimator. To improve the robustness of the distribution against the artifacts or interference terms, a windowed form of the polynomial Wigner–Ville distribution is used. Simulation and experimental results are presented which validate the method's applicability for direct phase derivative estimation.