Passive clear air turbulence detection system and method

A system for detecting clear air turbulence, comprising:

• a structure comprising a passive thermal imaging system mounted to the structure, the passive thermal imaging system comprising:
• a plurality of detector arrays, each of the detector arrays configured to detect thermal electromagnetic radiation (EMR) within a same band around a desired EMR wavelength, each of the detector arrays comprising a plurality of pixels;
• imaging optics configured to receive thermal EMR within the band from an object, and to image the received thermal EMR from a same region of the object onto pixels of each of the plurality of detector arrays;
• and
• processing electronics configured to:
• receive a detected signal from each of the pixels of the plurality of detector arrays;
• calculate a correlation value based on a multi-correlation of the received detected signals of corresponding pixels of different detector arrays of the plurality of detector arrays, the detected signals based on the thermal EMR from the object;
• and
• compare the correlation value with a threshold correlation value to determine that a detection event has occurred in response to the correlation value exceeding the threshold correlation value, the threshold correlation value being equal to or between 0.8 and 0.85.

A method for passively imaging thermal electromagnetic radiation (EMR), the method comprising:

• receiving a detected signal from each of a plurality of pixels of a plurality of detector arrays;
• calculating a correlation value based on a multi-correlation of the received detected signals of corresponding pixels of different detector arrays of the plurality of detector arrays, the detected signals based on a thermal EMR from an object;
• and
• comparing the correlation value with a threshold correlation value to determine that a detection event has occurred in response to the correlation value exceeding the threshold correlation value, the threshold correlation value being equal to or between 0.8 and 0.85.