Abstract: An optical interrogator for illuminating an object comprising a laser, a splitter, an optical polarizing element, and an optical recombiner. The laser is configured to generate a laser pulse, which the splitter splits into first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth laser segments such that each of the laser segments are separated by a time delay on the order of nanoseconds between each laser segment. The optical polarizing element is positioned so as to respectively polarize the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth laser segments with a 0° linear polarization, a 45° linear polarization, a 90° linear polarization, a 135° linear polarization, a right-handed, circular polarization (RHCP), and a left-handed, circular polarization (LHCP). The optical recombiner combines the polarized laser segments into a train of co-aligned pulses for illuminating the object.

Abstract: A method for characterizing an atmospheric propagation channel comprising: generating a database of atmospheric modulation transfer functions (MTFs) over a range of known values for at least one image-quality-related parameter; capturing at least one image of an object with an image capture device, wherein the image capture device is separated from the object by the atmospheric channel; deconvolving the captured image with every atmospheric MTF in the database to create a plurality of deconvolved, captured images; scoring each deconvolved, captured image according to an image quality metric (IQM); using an optimization-decision algorithm to find the best IQM score; and characterizing the atmospheric propagation channel as possessing the type and value of the image-quality-related parameters that are associated with the corresponding MTFs used to deconvolve the image having the best IQM score.