Performance of the binary nonlinear joint transform correlators in the presence of the Fourier plane quantization

Abstract

The quantization effects of the joint power spectrum on the performance of both binary joint transform correlator (JTC) and the conventional linear JTC are investigated. Computer simulation is used to determine the correlation peak intensity, peak to sidelobe ratio, and the correlation width for various quantization levels. We show that in binary JTC, a capture effect for the number of the quantization levels exists. No correlation signal is produced when the joint power spectrum is quantized below a certain number of quantization levels. For the quantization levels of the joint power spectrum above this capture level, the correlation performance is comparable to that of the unquantized JTC. For conventional linear JTC, the effects of the quantization is to deteriorate the correlation performance steadily.