Shared-hardware alternating operation of a superparallel holographic optical correlator and a superparallel holographic RAM

Abstract

For practical pattern recognition and tracking systems, it is often useful to have a high-speed random access memory (RAM), which complements a holographic correlator. Recently, we have demonstrated a super-parallel holographic optical correlator, which uniquely identifies N images from a database using only 2 N number of detector elements. In this paper, we show how this correlator architecture, operated in reverse, may be used to realize a super-parallel holographic random access memory. We present preliminary results establishing the feasibility of the super-parallel holographic random access memory, and show that essentially the same set of hardware can be operated either as the super-parallel holographic optical correlator or as a super-parallel holographic random access memory, with a minor reorientation of some of the elements in real time. This hybrid device thus eliminates the need for a separate random access memory for a holographic correlator based target recognition and tracking system.