Abstract

Restoration of blurred images has been approached by different optical and digital signal processing techniques, one of which is using inverse filters. Inverse filters require the generation of the function 1/H(x,y) where H(x,y) is the transfer function of the filter. In this paper we present a new algorithm to generate an inverse filter transfer function without performing the division operation directly. The algorithm is an iterative one. The condition for convergence of the algorithm is derived theoretically and confirmed with computer simulations. A new architecture for a coherent optical processor is introduced to realize the inverse filter algorithm. System requirements and speed of convergence are presented. Uses of the generated inverse filter in pattern recognition, image restoration, and deconvolution are discussed. This method is compared with the holographic inverse filter method.

© 1991 Optical Society of America