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"Shimmer Vision" Scopes See Better Using Heat
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a neat DARPA idea that uses the shimmer of heat haze to allow binoculars to see further. It works by exploiting the fact that some distortions from heat haze actually magnify objects behind them. The binoculars collect a series of frames when that is occurring to boost magnification by 3 times. The design goal is to be able to present one image a second, and to enable facial recognition at 90% accuracy at a distance of 1 km. The scopes could be on the battlefield inside of 3 years."
This is the same principle used in noise cancellation filters. Except that they are extracting information from the distortion instead of dropping it. You can take the average of a signal with distortion and assume that the distortion is random, and throw out the random seeming bits of it. This aims to save the random stuff, and try to find a pattern within it (such as a face), then it probably uses that to enhance the real-time pixels.
I think there was a story on here about using still photos to enhance digital movies. The principle is probably the same, only the "still photo" is replaced by stuff that's inferred to be noise, but good noise (and possibly processed with a face algo).
No reason why you couldn't do this with radio also, they probably already do.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
The article has a broken link to the original technical presentation. Try this: http://www.iol.umd.edu/Presentations/slideshow.php?id=54
The results here are very interesting. This is different -- and harder -- than the adaptive optics used in ground-based astronomy because the distorting medium is thick, extending all the way to the object being observed. What this implies is that the wavefront distortion isn't uniform across the entire image. So they pick out regions of good (sharp) seeing from each frame, then stitch them together to produce an entire sharp frame. They'll need a fairly fast image processor in those binoculars.
You can already do that, you just can't likely get the technology easily and affordable.
As much as I respect DARPA this seems like it is likely just a mirage.
If you have the inclination and the connections you *can* get optical scopes that will recognize objects.
This article is about increasing magnification results due to the optics based on heat. It seems like a realistic probability but a logistics nightmare. If you've ever been in the desert you'll see the waves but, at the same time, you'll see them across MANY a snow field as well, more so if there is a crust on said field.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Fail.
Firstly, optical interceptors are implanted during medical revisions so if this is what you are talking about you fail.
Second, the eye-stealing trick involved hacking cyberbrains, it bypasses any sort of binoculars or interceptors, you still fail.
Surrender your otaku card, now.
But... the future refused to change.
Long range shooter reporting in.
Mirage is nearly everywhere nearly all the time, and we use it to dope wind along the course of fire. The angle indicates wind speed and direction is a clue to wind direction. We are also aware that changes in sun intensity and direction affect the shooter's impression of where the target is located...bullets strike lower in bright light relative to where your eye thinks they will.
Anyway, a lot of the posts here lead me to believe people think DARPA needs to know exact temperature for this to work. I don't think so, since mirage is wind dependent as well, and there is no way to know that with much accuracy.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Even without the cute DARPA stuff, you could likely do that with COTS software like Helicon Focus. It's designed to look for the sharpest portion of an image in a stack of pictures taken at very slightly different focal points so you can increase depth of field without losing other aspects of a high quality information.
Hmm, may have to try that sometime. Thanks.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Got to admit, but it's amazing to think that what would normally be a hindrance "the shimmering in the heat" could become an asset.
OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Modulation) schemes (which include WiFi and WiMax) do the same thing with multipath interference: Take advantage of the extra signal brought in by the multiple paths and add it all up to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way