Detection in polarimetric images in the presence of additive noise and non-uniform illumination

Active polarimetric imaging systems yield information about the intensity contrast and the Orthogonal State Contrast (OSC) in the scene. However, in real systems, the illumination is often spatially or temporally non uniform which creates artificial intensity contrasts that can lead to false alarms. We derive the Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT) detectors when intensity information is taken into account or not. These results are used to determine in which cases considering intensity information in addition to polarimetric information is relevant or not.