Restoration of Sparse Aperture Images Using Spatial Modulation Diversity Technology Based on a Binocular Telescope Testbed

In this paper, our recently developed spatial modulation diversity technology (SMDT) is first used to correct the blurring and restore the lost midband contrast of synthetic images based upon an actual sparsely filled aperture system, specifically a binocular telescope testbed consisting of two horizontally arranged collector telescopes with 127 mm diameter. Synthetic images are obtained with the testbed cophased by an optimization algorithm. Diversity images are generated by using electronic shutter to modulate the transmittance of each subaperture, alternately. We capture two independent datasets corresponding to different objects regarded as the reference of each other. Then an improved algorithm of SMDT for real sparse aperture systems is proposed to restore the synthetic imagery by processing the datasets. The experimental results that the reconstructed images present high quality and contrast and that the repeatable wavefront measurements show a good agreement demonstrate the availability of SMDT for image restoration in actual multiaperture systems.