OPTICAL CORRELATOR WITH DUAL NONLINEARITY

A generalization of the main linear and nonlinear correlation methods, the dual nonlinear correlation (DNC), is introduced. Various filters (CMF, POF, IF, FPF, PPC, OF) appear to be special cases of the DNC. Th e convolution formula describing the peak shape and the intermodulatio n effects for the noise-free multi-object scenes is discussed. Optimiz ation of the DNC according to the peak-to-correlation energy criterion is performed. Superior performance of the PPC is presented. The influ ence of noise on the intermodulation effects is studied. Hybrid, optoe lectronic realization of the DNC based on joint transform correlator a rchitecture with nonlinear preprocessing which allows the introduction of various correlation methods without any filters is proposed.