A novel application of range-gated underwater laser imaging system (ULIS) in near-target turbid medium

Range-gated imaging system improves signal-to-backscattering noise ratio (SBR) by rejecting backscattered light from the target irradiance. This is achieved by synchronizing the arrival of pulsed target irradiance with the gating of an intensified camera. Witherspoon and Holloway (Ocean Optics X 1302 (1990) 414-420) indicated that the image quality of range-gated imaging system might be further improved by a delay in the camera gating towards the tail of reflected image temporal profile (RITP). This phenomena has, however, not been further elaborated. This paper extends on Witherspoon's observation. The MCRITP (Monte Carlo for RITP) algorithm is validated with theoretical and experimental results for medium attenuation coefficients of 0.26-5.90/m. By temporal convolution of the simulated results with outgoing Gaussian light pulse, Tail RITP region shows more reduction in the unwanted backscatter effects than the target intensity. This can be observed as an improvement in image contrast and a modified fidelity index (MF).