OPTICAL WAVELET MATCHED-FILTER

A shift-invariant optical continuous wavelet transform is used for pat tern recognition. We propose an optical wavelet matched filter that pe rforms optical wavelet transforms for edge enhancement and the correla tion between two wavelet transforms in a single step. This new bandpas s matched filter shows improved discrimination capability with respect to the conventional matched filter and improved signal-to-noise ratio with respect to the phase-only matched filter. The wavelet matched fi lter provides flexibility of an adaptive choice of the scale factors o f the wavelets that permit the selection of size and orientation of th e smoothing function used in edge enhancement and the optimization of the performance of the filter. Optical experimental results are shown.