Performance Synthesis (Electro-Optical Sensors)

Abstract : This effort is a continuation of the Performance Synthesis Study (Electro-Optical Sensors) reported in Technical Report AFAL-TR-71-137, dated May 1971. Analytical models are developed for evaluating and predicting the performance of observers augmented by electro-optical sensors for laboratory test images such as rectangles and periodic bar patterns and for a limited number of real world objects. The models developed are improved, and modified to bring them into closer agreement with those models proposed by other investigators for the purpose of obtaining greater acceptance and making available a wider body of technical literature. In the models developed, a signal-to-noise ratio is associated with an image based on the image's irradiance and spatial dimensions. Through psychophysical experimentation, the observer's thresholds for discrimination of these images are determined. Methods of predicting the range capability of sensor-augmented observers are developed and applied to both range-gated active and passive low-light-level television systems. These models take into account properties of the scene, atmosphere and level of target discrimination. Also, pure image motion effects, observer effects due to motion, and sensor effects due to motion are analyzed. The general area of system specification is discussed.