Proposal Number: ECS-9705668 Principal Investigator: Mohammad Alam Title: Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI): Fractional Power Fringe-Adjusted Based Joint Transform Correlator In this research, a novel real-time distortion-invariant filter procedure for optical pattern recognition will be investigated. Optical pattern recognition involves the use of either a matched filter based correlator or a joint transform correlator (JTC); only the later is suitable for real-time applications. Recently a number of nonlinear optical techniques have been proposed for optical pattern recognition, and the all-optical photorefractive crystal JTC stands out among these. To date, the photorefractive JTC architecture is suitable only for single target detection and the processing speed is slow. The PI's research will develop a novel generalized JTC which employs nonlinear apodization at the Fourier plane. Preliminary studies by the PI indicate that this JTC technique results in better correlation output compared to alternate JTC architectures. This seems true for multiple targets, which may be rotated with respect to each other and well as single targets; and for noisy as well as noise-free backgrounds. There are many applications for such an improved optical pattern recognition technique: machine parts recognition and label inspection for industrial automation, optical character recognition, ultrafast fingerprint identification, target detection and tracking, robotics vision, automated intelligent vehicle control systems, and real-time region-of-interest identifier in broad area search situations such as the identification of specific features, patterns or characteristics in earth resource images. The PI will explore various architectures to effectively implement the nonlinear Fourier domain processing, through extensive modeling, simulation and experimentation. The experimentation will be carried out in collaboration with the Electro-Optics Laboratory at University of Dayton. Fu ll undergraduate student participation in the research at INPU-Fort Wayne and at University of Dayton is planned.
