Abstract

The joint-Fourier-transform-based correlator is capable of real-time matching and tracking operations without the fabrication of a complex filter. However, its autocorrelation peaks are relatively weak when compared to that of the de peak. Such problems are now being handled by suppressing the de peaks by means of optical disks.¹,² In this work, we propose to solve this same problem and at the same time further increase the autocorrelation peaks by carefully preprocessing the reference objects. We show that when the reference amplitude is suitably thresholded, the resulting autocorrelation peak heights significantly increase while the de peaks can be significantly suppressed. We further show that the ratio of the autocorrelation peak value to the de peak value can be increased by suitably optimizing the threshold used in the preprocessing of the reference.

© 1990 Optical Society of America