Statistical analysis of background IR emission in the 3 - 5.6 um and 8 - 14 um regions.

Abstract

The amplitude distributions of the sky and sea background noise in the 3—5.6 fxm and 8—14 /mi spectral regions are analyzed. These background scenes were obtained with an AGEMA 780 Thermovision sensor and recorded with the AGEMA TIC—8000 data acquisition system. The amplitude distributions of 3—5.6 /mi clear sky, 3—5.6 /im cloudy sky, and 8—14 /mi sea background noise sources obey Gaussian distributions A Gaussian amplitude distribution does not provide a good fit to the observed 3—5.6 /mi sea background data and the 8—14 /mi clear sky background. Scene contamination may have caused the 3—5.6 /mi sea background to deviate from a Gaussian distribution. In addition, the amplitudes of the 8—14 /mi clear sky background fall into the non—linear portion of the dynamic range of the scanner. As a result, no conclusion is made regarding the parent distributions for 3—5.6 /im sea background or the 8—14 /im clear sky background.