Abstract:The selective absorption and scattering effects of water on visible light of different wavelengths severely constrain the quality of optical imaging. Polarization imaging technology demonstrates significant advantages in high-turbidity, short-range underwater environments. This study employs an active polarization imaging system utilizing three laser wavelengths—red, green, and blue—to comparatively analyze imaging performance in typical natural water with turbidity levels of 10-25 NTU. Experimental results indicate that red light achieves the optimal polarization imaging performance, followed by green light, while blue light performs the weakest. Furthermore, a polarization image enhancement algorithm is proposed, which significantly improves the imaging quality for all three laser wavelengths. Under a turbidity condition of 19.97 NTU, the entropy value of enhanced images of diving suit fabric using the proposed method shows an approximately 34.4% improvement compared to the traditional Schechner method. The research demonstrates that integrating polarization imaging into active laser imaging systems can effectively enhance underwater imaging quality, offering new insights for optimizing underwater imaging technology at specific wavelengths.