Bispectral Imaging Through Unknown Deterministic Aberrations

When the deterministic aberrations are known in an optical system, traditional de-blurring methods are effective. However, when the aberrations are difficult to quantify, such as telescope aberrations or the aberrations in the human eye, other methods are needed. One potential method for de-blurring an image that is formed from a system with unknown aberrations is the bispectral imaging method. It is a promising way to remove the effects of deterministic aberrations when random aberrations are present or artificially introduced into the system. Through computer simulations, we have found the optimal amount of random aberrations to have present in a system containing deterministic aberrations. This amount optimizes the image quality of the reconstruction at high light levels using 100 statistically independent aberrated images of the object. Defocus and several third-order aberrations were considered in the isoplanatic case. The performance of this method was characterized by reconstructing a point source and computing its Strehl ratio. These results are currently being used to incorporate the bispectral imaging method as part of a non-invasive technique to reconstruct high-resolution images of the back of the eye in human subjects.