The electro-optical imaging system works under focus conditions for clear imaging. However, under unexpected laser irradiation, the focused light with extremely high intensity can easily damage the imaging sensor, resulting in permanent degradation of its perceptual capabilities. With the escalating prevalence of compact high-performance lasers, safeguarding cameras from laser damage presents a formidable challenge. Here, we report an end-to-end method to construct the wavefront coding (WFC) imaging systems with simultaneous superior laser protection and imaging performance. In the optical coding part, we employ four types of phase mask parameterization methods: pixel-wise, concentric rings, linear combinations of Zernike bases, and odd-order polynomial bases, with parameters that are learnable. In the algorithm decoding part, a method combined of deconvolution module and residual-Unet is proposed to furthest restore the phase-mask-induced image blurring. The optical and algorithm parts are jointly optimized within the end-to-end framework to determine the performance boundary. The governing rule of the laser protection capability versus imaging quality is revealed by tuning the optimization loss function, and the system database is established for various working conditions. Numerical simulations and experimental validations both demonstrate that the proposed laser-protection WFC imaging system can reduce the peak single-pixel laser power by 99.4% while maintaining high-quality imaging with peak signal-to-noise ratio more than 22 dB. This work pioneers what we believe to be a new path for the design of laser protection imaging systems, with promising applications in security and autonomous driving.

A novel anti-cat-eye effect imaging technique based on wavefront coding is proposed as a solution to the problem of previous anti-cat-eye effect imaging techniques where imaging quality was sacrificed to reduce the retroreflection from the photoelectric imaging equipment. With the application of the Fresnel–Kirchhoff diffraction theory, and the definition of generalized pupil function combining both phase modulation and defocus factors, the cat-eye echo formation of the wavefront coded imaging system is theoretically modeled. Based on the physical model, the diffracted spot profile distribution and the light intensity distribution on the observation plane are further simulated with the changes in the defocus parameter and the phase modulation coefficient. A verification test on the cat-eye laser echo power of the wavefront coded imaging system and that of the conventional imaging system at a 20 m distance are conducted, respectively. Simulations and experiment results show that compared with conventional imaging systems, the wavefront coding imaging system can reduce the retroreflection echo by two orders of magnitude while maintaining better imaging quality through defocusing.

<!-- *** Custom HTML *** --> Based on previous anti-cat-eye effect imaging techniques sacrificing too much imaging quality to achieve substantial retroreflection reduction, an anti-cat-eye effect imaging technique based on light-field imaging is proposed. Relevant studies have been carried out regarding the mechanism and effectiveness of both antilaser reconnaissance and blinding for this technique. By applying the Fresnel–Kirchhoff diffraction theory and defining the microlens array as a superposition of a series of microlens units, the retroreflection formation of the light-field imaging system is theoretically modeled. Based on the physical model, the influences of defocusing on the intensity distributions of spots on both the light-field detector and observation planes are further studied. The results show that, compared with a conventional system with the defocus invariant and flexible reconstruction properties, the light-field imaging system not only increases the interference and blinding thresholds by nearly one order of magnitude but also reduces both the retroreflection maximum intensity and the echo-detector receiving power by more than one order of magnitude, which sufficiently manifests the superior antilaser reconnaissance and blinding performances of the light-field imaging system.

Photoelectric imaging systems usually pursue a small-sized point spread function (PSF) to acquire high-quality images, but it also poses safety hazards for the camera in certain scenarios. For instance, ultrahigh intensity light focused on the sensor may cause irreversible damage when the camera is subjected to unexpected laser irradiation. Furthermore, clear images captured are vulnerable to privacy breaches during online transmission. In this paper, we report a concept of the OpSecureCam with protection capability versus both laser damage and privacy breaches via PSF engineering. The design recipe of the PSF with simultaneous enhancements in energy spread ratio and information flux is derived. An end-to-end framework is developed under theoretical guidance to jointly optimize the PSF and the decoding network, maximizing both protection capability and imaging quality of the OpSecureCam. A wavefront coding system is built to realize the concept, wherein the pupil phase distribution is obtained through a hybrid phase retrieval method based on Gerchberg-Saxton and stochastic gradient descent algorithms. Experiment results demonstrate that the OpSecureCam reduces the peak intensity of the jamming laser on its sensor by 99.73%, while the encoded images are robust against various blind deblurring methods. After being decoded by the matched network, the intricate structures of the image are restored with high quality for target identification or information extraction, including text, QR code, and human face. Our work offers a compact and efficient solution to enhance the adaptability of imaging systems, which holds potential for applications in autonomous driving and security monitoring.