Robust polarization-based underwater image enhancement method using anchor brightness adaptation

•In previous studies, when estimating the DoP of background light, relying only on the AoP of the only pixel is vulnerable to interference from camera random noise. To solve this problem, we propose an effective neighborhood high fidelity constraint (NHFC) that can estimate the DoP of the background light more accurately and robustly.•method will be proposed to estimate the intensity of the background light at infinity using the limit idea, which provides an accurate and fast estimation of the most suitable background light area.•An anchor brightness adaptation algorithm will be proposed to eliminate the side effect of inaccurate exposure of the enhanced image, the process is effective and requires no interaction.•The experiments were conducted in total darkness to simulate the underwater nighttime optical imaging environment.