Tariq Manzur,1,* John Zeller,1 and Steve Serati2 1 

Naval Undersea Warfare Center, 1176 Howell Street, Newport, Rhode Island 02841, USA 2 Boulder Nonlinear Systems, Inc., 450 Courtney Way, Lafayette, Colorado 80026, USA *Corresponding author: tariq.manzur@navy.mil 

Applied Optics, Vol. 51, Issue 21, pp. 4976-4983(2012). https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.51.004976

Received 27 February 2012; revised 31 May 2012; accepted 4 June 2012; posted 6 June 2012 (Doc. ID 163719); published 11 July 2012 

A dedicated automatic target recognition and tracking optical correlator (OC) system using advanced processing technology has been developed. Rapidly cycling data-cubes with size, shape, and orientation are employed with software algorithms to isolate correlation peaks and enable tracking of targets in maritime environments with future track prediction. The method has been found superior to employing maximum average correlation height filters for which the correlation peak intensity drops off in proportion to the number of training images. The physical dimensions of the OC system may be reduced to as small as 2 in: × 2 in: × 3 in: (51 mm × 51 mm × 76 mm) by modifying and minimizing the OC components. 

© 2012 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 070.4550, 070.6120, 100.1390, 100.4550, 100.4999.