Optical processing architectures for machine vision functions

Manufacturers must increase production rates and simultaneously tighten quality/process controls in order to meet ever-increasing competition and consumer demands for high quality products. This requires that products be manufactured more efficiently, at reducing cost, and with minimum scrap/waste. This in turn demands higher-speed inspection, with higher accuracy and consistency as well as intelligence. Achieving these goals will require highly parallel systems that perform image processing and pattern recognition in real time in various manufacturing environments. This paper presents a hybrid architecture combining state-of-the- art optical processing with conventional digital processing. A Solid Optical Correlator (SOC) system has been built and validated. The SOC incorporates rigidity, stability, and manufacturability--attributes which facilitate the use of the optical correlator in real-world industrial machine vision applications.