Rugged Portable Grayscale Optical Correlator for Onboard Automatic Target Recognition Applications

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has developed, for the first time, a matchbox-size compact grayscale optical correlator (GOC). In this paper, we will report the recent development of a prototype 512 × 512 GOC utilizing a new miniature ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulator (FLCSLM) with a 7-micron pixel pitch. We will discuss recent progress in the design and packaging technology to achieve a rugged portable GOC module to enable the real-time onboard applications of this miniature GOC. Experimental demonstration of ATR applications using this new GOC will be presented.