Non-line-of-sight imaging via wavefront shaping

Abstract

Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging is a rapidly developing research direction that has significant applications in autonomous vehicles, remote sensing, etc. Existing NLOS methods primarily depend on time gated measurements and/or sophisticated signal processing to extract information from the scattered light. Here, we introduce a new method that directly manipulates the light to counter the wall’s scattering. This method operates by actively focusing light onto the target in a NLOS path using wavefront shaping. By raster scanning that focus, we can actively image the occluded object. The focus thus formed is near diffraction limited and can be substantially smaller than the object itself, thereby enabling us to perform NLOS imaging with unprecedented resolution. We demonstrate that a resolution of ∼ 0.6 mm at a distance of 0.55 m is achievable in our experiment.