Time Integrating Optical Processors

Over the past few years there has been an exponential increase in interest in analog processing technology. This is largely due to economics. The cost of digital processing at very high data rates is often prohibitive. In addition, many of the components required for optical processing have matured to the "off-the-shelf" stage. A significant portion of the effort in optical processing has shifted from components development to processing architecture. The time integration architecture offers the following advantages: a. It makes the most effective use of CCD arrays as sensors. b. It often produces a significant data rate reduction. (output rate is often orders cf magnitude below the input rate) c. It does not require a two dimensional electrooptic modulator to implement two dimensional operations. The following paper reviews past efforts in one dimensional time integrating processors and introduces the two dimensional time integrating correlator. This correlator can implement a variety of operations including ambiguity functions and large time bandwidth spectrum analysis (two dimensional).