Experimental and simulation studies on the performance of binary and gray-valued joint transform correlators under poor illumination conditions and nonoverlapping background noise

Abstract

The correlation performance of four different types of joint transform correlators (JTCs) is investigated in a noncooperative situation when the target image is cluttered with scene noise and present under poor illumination condition. Computer simulation and experimental re- sults are provided. Although the binary JTCs based on spatial- frequency-dependent threshold (SFDT), sliding-window local-median threshold (SWLMT) offer good correlation performance in poor target image illumination conditions their performance is affected in the pres- ence of background noise in the target image. The JTC based on modified-fringe-adjusted filter (MFAF) performs better in such a com- bined situation. © 1997 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. (S0091-3286(97)01307-X)