Laser gated viewing at ISL for vision through smoke, active polarimetry, and 3D imaging in NIR and SWIR wavelength bands

Abstract In this article, we want to give a review on the application of laser gated viewing for the improvement of vision cross-diffusing obstacles (smoke, turbid medium, …), the capturing of 3D scene information, or the study of material properties by polarimetric analysis at near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave-infrared (SWIR) wavelengths. Laser gated viewing has been studied since the 1960s as an active night vision method. Owing to enormous improvements in the development of compact and highly efficient laser sources and in the development of modern sensor technologies, the maturity of demonstrator systems rose during the past decades. Further, it was demonstrated that laser gated viewing has versatile sensing capabilities with application for long-range observation under certain degraded weather conditions, vision through obstacles and fog, active polarimetry, and 3D imaging.