Synthetic waves sensor enables turbulence-resistant imaging

Atmospheric turbulence severely distorts optical wavefronts, posing a major obstacle to high-fidelity imaging in automobiles, astronomical observation, and remote sensing. Accurate measurement of the phase distribution across the turbulence field is therefore essential for mitigating its deleterious effects. However, the central challenge lies in acquiring transmission matrices at different depths along the propagation path. Maintaining high precision in three-dimensional phase detection remains challenging for existing techniques. Furthermore, the intricate optical configurations in these techniques often lead to bulky system designs and high costs, limiting their effectiveness in complex turbulence environments. To overcome this limitation, we present a Synthetic waves sensor (SWS) capable of real-time and three-dimensional phase measurement. This system enables compensation for atmospheric turbulence effects to reconstruct objects embedded deep within turbulence. Through numerical simulations, we demonstrate the utility of SWS by imaging target object through four layers turbulence. The structural similarity index (SSIM) of the reconstruction image improves significantly from 56% to 83%, indicating a high enhancement in image fidelity—from barely visible to clearly resolved targets. Our findings introduce a transformative framework for three-dimensional turbulence characterization and correction, offering promising applications in deep optical imaging under adverse environmental conditions.