High-similarity analytical model of skylight polarization pattern based on position variations of neutral points

Opt Express. 2023 Apr 24;31(9):15189-15203. doi: 10.1364/OE.489534.

Abstract

The skylight polarization pattern contains rich information for navigation, meteorological monitoring, and remote sensing. In this paper, we propose a high-similarity analytical model by considering the influence of the solar altitude angle on the neutral point position variations for the distribution pattern of the polarized skylight. A novel function is built to determine the relationship between the neutral point position and solar elevation angle based on a large number of measured data. The experimental results show that the proposed analytical model achieves a higher similarity to measured data compared with existing models. Furthermore, data from several consecutive months verifies the universality, effectiveness, and accuracy of this model.