Photo-DKDP light valve in optical data processing.

Various real-time optical data processing experimentstusing the photo-DKDP spatial light modulator are described. These include the performance of image subtraction and contrast reversal directly on the light valve and their application to practical pattern recognition situations in which the input and reference objects differ. Examples of real-time optical correlation on coded waveforms for signal processing are presented, and the accuracy of the optically produced ambiguity function outputs are compared to the theoretically expected ones. Real-time optical image pattern recognition experiments are also presented, together with comparative data obtained with off-line correlations performed using film.