Influence of perturbations in a hybrid digital-optical correlator

In this paper, we study the influence of perturbations in a hybrid digital-optical correlator that uses images obtained from CCD camera and rotation-invariant maximum average correlation height filter. The hybrid correlator is implemented using a gray value ferroelectric liquid crystal electrically addressed spatial light modulator. We study the effect of occlusion on the input target, the effect of additive and multiplicative noise and their combined effect on the input target, and the effect of occlusion on the product function to be optically processed for obtaining the correlation outputs. The space-bandwidth product of the correlator system has also been discussed from design point of view. To evaluate the correlation output, metrics such as correlation peak height, peak-to-correlation energy, and peak-to-side lobe ratio are calculated using the simulated results.