ELECTRO-OPTICS  LABORATORY

We describe generalized projection procedures for the design of arbitrary filter functions for correlators. More specifically, serial and parallel implementations of projection-based algorithms are employed. The novelty of this procedure lies in its generality and its ability to handle wide varieties of constraints by the same procedure. The procedure is demonstrated by the design of filters for the 4-f linear correlator, the phase-extraction correlator, and variants thereof. The filters are subject to a variety of constraints, including rotation-invariant pattern recognition and class discrimination. Examples are given to show the versatility, flexibility, and applicability of the design process to a variety of pattern-recognition tasks. Satisfactory results are also obtained because of the combination with the special nonlinear correlators proposed for pattern recognition.