Binary phase only joint transform correlator

A joint transform hybrid optical correlator as applied to binary phase only filtering for pattern recognition is proposed. The interference fringes of the joint Fourier transformation, due to the reference and the input targets, are captured by a CCD camera feeding into a microcomputer for binarization. A binarized phase only filter, in principle, can be written onto a spatial light modulator (SLM). By simple coherent illumination of SLM, correlation operation of the reference and the input targets can be obtained. A computer simulation for the target embedded in an additive Gaussian noise is provided.