A Non-Uniformity Correction Method for Uncooled Infrared Polarization Imaging Systems

Uncooled infrared polarization imaging systems integrate polarization components to acquire target polarization characteristics, thereby enhancing detection capabilities. However, due to the absence of a cold screen, such systems are susceptible to non-uniform internal thermal radiation exchange, which manifests as fixed pattern noise (FPN) independent of the scene during imaging. Previous non-uniformity correction (NUC) algorithms usually couple polarization information with FPN correction, resulting in the loss of polarization characteristics. To address this issue, a two-stage decoupled correction method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a polarization response separation method (PRSM) is designed to extract the polarization response components associated with polarization channels through a blackbody radiation reference. Subsequently, a radial distance weighted fitting (RDWF) is proposed to process parametric model and compensate for FPN based on the spatial response characteristics of the optical system. Finally, the experimental results on real-world scene images demonstrate that the proposed method effectively eliminates FPN while preserving polarization information.