Infrared polarization imaging has great application value in military affairs. Abroad has carried out thermal polarization imaging theory and a large number of experimental researches. Israel's B.Ben et al. studied the degree of polarization of various backgrounds and concluded that the degree of polarization of green vegetation is about 0.5%, and that of rocky soil is between 0.5% and 1.5%. The polarization degree of asphalt concrete road is 1.7%~3.4%, and the polarization degree of water surface and sea surface is 1%~2%. Cooper et al. in the United States carried out imaging experiments on ship targets and sea backgrounds and concluded that the contrast between the horizontal polarization degrees of the target and the background is much stronger in the long-wave infrared band than in the mid-infrared band. Aron et al. applied infrared polarization imaging to infrared forward vision, which improved the signal-to-noise ratio of the forward vision instrument and reduced the false alarm rate. He conducted field experiments with vehicles and tents.

 

We can see that both the car and the tent have linear polarization, but the background does not. The signal-to-noise ratio of infrared polarization imaging has been improved by a factor of 30. In most cases of clutter interference, infrared polarization imaging can detect targets with a wider wavelength range than ordinary infrared imaging. False alarm rates remain below 2% across all wavelength ranges. In addition to the search and tracking of military targets, infrared polarization imaging can also be used for non-invasive and rapid diagnosis of early skin cancer based on the polarization characteristics of human incident light and backlight scattering. Wide application prospects.