Abstract
It is well known to system engineers that speckle imposes a limitation on active-tracking performance, but scaling laws that quantify this limitation do not currently exist in the peer-reviewed literature. Additionally, existing models lack validation through either simulation or experimentation. With these points in mind, this paper formulates closed-form expressions that accurately predict the noise-equivalent angle due to speckle. The analysis separately treats both well-resolved and unresolved cases for circular and square apertures. When compared with the numerical results from wave-optics simulations, the analytical results show excellent agreement to a track-error limitation of (1/3)λ/D, where λ/D is the aperture diffraction angle. As a result, this paper creates validated scaling laws for system engineers that need to account for active-tracking performance.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 904-913 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of the Optical Society of America A: Optics and Image Science, and Vision |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2023 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition