Information Segregating Towards Simultaneous Tracking and Imaging Based on Ghost Imaging

Simultaneously tracking and imaging moving objects has been an open problem, due to the requirement on a large amount of information and the low photon flux during the very moment that the object can be taken as stationary. Information of the moving object can be decomposed into motion information of the centroid and image of the object. The amount of motion information can be far less than that for imaging. Therefore, we propose to solve the problem by information segregating. That is, to obtain the motion trajectory and gradually achieve the image during the tracking process. As an example, we unify tracking and imaging within a single system, based on ghost imaging with a four-quadrant detector. The differential signals from the quadrant detector are used for tracking, and the sum signals are for imaging. Experimental results show that our method provides high tracking accuracy and high-quality imaging. For objects of angular velocity up to 165 mrad/s, the tracking accuracy reaches 1/7 of the imaging resolution. Possible influences from different practical factors are also discussed.