Abstract

A demonstration of a real time image correlator based on acoustooptic and charge coupled devices is presented. This architecture utilizes 1-D devices to perform the desired 2-D correlation. The 2-D correlation is performed as a series of multichannel time integrating correlations between each input image line and the reference template which is stored in an electronic memory. The rows of the reference template are introduced into the processor in parallel using a 1-D light emitting diode array. The correlation in the vertical direction is performed using a modified charge coupled device operating in the shift and add mode. Modifications which dramatically improved both the dynamic range and light efficiency of the original architecture¹ were previously reported.² This demonstration shows the real time capability of this high dynamic range acoustooptic correlator implementation. The real time correlation of a 64 × 64 pixel reference template with a 256 × 232 pixel input image at video rates is presented.

© 1989 Optical Society of America