Signal processing for functional FD OCT

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The next generation of FD OCT systems are expected to grow beyond just structural imaging, and to include functional imaging. In particular, measurement of the polarization properties of the retina provides important diagnostic information that is not observable in the structural OCT image alone. Polarization sensitive FD OCT requires separate detection of the two polarizations of light, referred to commonly as the s and p polarizations. There are different ways of implementing this, for example a straight forward implementation is to have two separate spectrometers, one for each of the s and the p polarizations. Alternatively, the spectrometer could be custom designed with multi-fibre inputs, and imaging optics to different locations on the same detector. In either case, the interferometric signal acquired by each detector needs to be re-sampled and normalized for polarization sensitive processing. This requires non-trivial signal processing to be performed. Furthermore, although various approaches to polarization sensitive progressing of the FD OCT data have been proposed in the literature, this is an area of active algorithmic signal processing development. PPO has expertise in the spectrometer design and manufacturing, but requires new signal processing capabilities for polarization sensitive FD OCT. Develop of polarization sensitive OCT is a strategic move in order to expand the focus at PPO to deliver FD OCT engines for functional imaging, which would be a significant competitive advantage for this emerging market application. The purpose of this research proposal is to investigate polarization sensitive processing and visualization tools using FD OCT imaging for biological imaging and also for non-destructive testing (NDT) through a new collaboration between Dr. Mirza Faisal Beg and P&P Optica Inc. The image processing algorithms and approaches developed at SFU by Dr. Beg have significant potential to complement and address the needs of PPO.