Signal Processing Electronics Research Articles

Study on real-time detection method for electron beam selective melting process

In order to solve the problem of lack of effective and real-time monitoring evaluation method for electron beam selective melting (EBSM) processing, a technique of acquiring real-time secondary electron (SE) imaging through layer-by-layer scanning is presented, which could monitor the defects of components. Basic design scheme, including the Electron beam scanning system, signal processing and imaging system, is introduced in this paper. Capability of generating digital image and choosing different monitoring area for the real-time monitoring system has been verified by series of experiments. Results suggest that the maximum resolution of the prototype has reached 0.3mm.

Performance results of National Array of Neutron Detectors (NAND) facility at IUAC

The 100 element neutron detector array facility, National Array of Neutron Detectors (NAND) has been installed at Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), New Delhi for experiments in heavy-ion reaction studies. The detector array consists of 100 organic liquid scintillators, each of size 5”×5” coupled to 5 in. diameter photomultiplier. The liquid cells are mounted at 175 cm from the target with full array covering 3.3% of 4π solid angle. We present an overview of the design and implementation of various subsystems of the array. Description of the mechanical structure, development of detectors and nuclear electronics for signal processing, data acquisition, characterization of detectors and test results are presented. Results on the performance characteristics of the array are given based on the offline tests using radioactive sources and commissioning test by in-beam experiments. The system demonstrates good n−γ discrimination and time-of-flight performance.

DWTLSTM for electronic nose signal processing in beef quality monitoring

The smart packaging system is needed to continuously monitor the quality of beef and microbial population for both the meat industries as well as end consumers. Moreover, several feasibility studies of electronic nose (e-nose) for rapid beef quality assessment are also conducted in recent years. The characteristics of e-nose are fast, cheap, and easy to use make it suitable and scalable for beef quality monitoring applications. It is also potential to be integrated with consumer electronics such as refrigerator and meat chiller. However, the inevitable challenge is how to handle time-series data that is contaminated with noise. In this paper, discrete wavelet transform and long short-term memory (DWTLSTM) is proposed to overcome the e-nose signal contaminated with noise in monitoring beef quality. In beef quality classification task, our proposed has a favorable performance with 94.83% of average accuracy and 85.05% of average F-measure. Moreover, it presents a satisfactory performance in the prediction of microbial population (RMSE = 0.0515 and R2 = 0.9712). These results indicate that the DWTLSTM outperforms conventional methods such as k-nearest neighbor (k-NN), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), support vector machine/support vector regression (SVM/SVR), multilayer perceptron (MLP), and even standard long-short term memory (LSTM).

A new waveform analysis technique to extract good energy and position resolution from a dual-axis duo-lateral position-sensitive detector

The dual-axis duo-lateral position-sensitive silicon detector was developed to detect charged particles with high quality position and energy resolution. When these detectors were used with conventional signal processing electronics, an empirically determined correction was used to improve energy resolution. In this work, the waveforms from the detector after preamplification are studied in detail to investigate position information contained in the waveforms. A 7.22 MeV/nucleon alpha particle beam was impinged directly on a masked dual-axis duo-lateral detector. Data obtained using a 228Th alpha particle source was also used. By studying the waveform characteristics that give rise to the position-dependent distortions, a new summed trigger analysis method has been developed to significantly improve linearity in position reconstruction without sacrificing energy resolution.

A Low-Power, Highly Integrated Radiation Detection System for Portable, Long-Duration Monitoring

This paper presents the signal processing and power supply electronics for a radiation detection system designed for use in portable and long-duration radiation monitoring applications. The tested system achieves state-of-the-art low power consumption, requiring 2.4 mW, including detector powering, when detecting radiation at 1000 counts per second (cps). It contains two separate chip designs that are optimized for low-power and low-noise operation. First, a $0.13~\mu \text{m}$ multichannel analyzer (MCA) chip measures, processes, and stores sensor data to build a radiation spectrum. Second, a $0.35~\mu \text{m}$ controller chip drives the detector power supply (DPS) circuitry, generating the high voltages required to power standard radiation detectors. The chips were fabricated, tested, and interfaced to a scintillation-based detector to forma complete, low-power radiation detection system that can operate for over 30 days when powered from a CR2477 button cell battery.

A novel flash‐like all‐metal‐oxide semiconductor analog‐to‐digital converter suitable for system on chips systems

SummaryThe analog‐to‐digital converters (ADCs) play a very important role in electronic products, radar, communication systems and signal processing, to name such a few. In this paper, a novel all‐metal‐oxide semiconductor (MOS) flash‐like analog‐to‐digital converter (FLADC) that consists of five stages is proposed. The design was performed using only MOS transistors, and the proposed ADC works in a way similar to the conventional flash ADC. According to the proposed ADC, there is no need for the comparators used in the conventional flash ADCs, thus resulting in a reduction in both the transistor count and the power consumption. The sound operation and the superiority of the proposed ADC compared to previous works is verified by simulation using the 0.13‐μm complementary MOS (CMOS) technology with a power‐supply voltage, VDD, of 1.2 V. The simulation has been conducted on a 5‐bit FLADC that is built by 276 MOS transistors only which is approximately 32% of the transistor count of the corresponding conventional flash ADC and has no resistors. According to the simulation results, the proposed 5‐bit FLADC consumes 3.23 mW at sampling rate of 0.5 GS/s.

Fundamental limitations of spectrally-sliced optically enabled data converters arising from MLL timing jitter.

The effect of phase noise introduced by optical sources in spectrally-sliced optically enabled DACs and ADCs is modeled and analyzed in detail. In both data converter architectures, a mode-locked laser is assumed to provide an optical comb whose lines are used to either synthesize or analyze individual spectral slices. While the optical phase noise of the central MLL line as well as of other optical carriers used in the analyzed system architectures have a minor impact on the system performance, the RF phase noise of the MLL fundamentally limits it. In particular, the corresponding jitter of the MLL pulse train is transferred almost one-to-one to the system-level timing jitter of the data converters. While MLL phase noise can in principle be tracked and removed by electronic signal processing, this results in electric oscillator phase noise replacing the MLL jitter and is not conducive in systems leveraging the ultra-low jitter of low-noise mode-locked lasers. Precise analytical models are derived and validated by detailed numerical simulations.

Design and Integration of a Wireless Stretchable Multimodal Sensor Network in a Composite Wing.

This article presents the development of a stretchable sensor network with high signal-to-noise ratio and measurement accuracy for real-time distributed sensing and remote monitoring. The described sensor network was designed as an island-and-serpentine type network comprising a grid of sensor “islands” connected by interconnecting “serpentines.” A novel high-yield manufacturing process was developed to fabricate networks on recyclable 4-inch wafers at a low cost. The resulting stretched sensor network has 17 distributed and functionalized sensing nodes with low tolerance and high resolution. The sensor network includes Piezoelectric (PZT), Strain Gauge (SG), and Resistive Temperature Detector (RTD) sensors. The design and development of a flexible frame with signal conditioning, data acquisition, and wireless data transmission electronics for the stretchable sensor network are also presented. The primary purpose of the frame subsystem is to convert sensor signals into meaningful data, which are displayed in real-time for an end-user to view and analyze. The challenges and demonstrated successes in developing this new system are demonstrated, including (a) developing separate signal conditioning circuitry and components for all three sensor types (b) enabling simultaneous sampling for PZT sensors for impact detection and (c) configuration of firmware/software for correct system operation. The network was expanded with an in-house developed automated stretch machine to expand it to cover the desired area. The released and stretched network was laminated into an aerospace composite wing with edge-mount electronics for signal conditioning, processing, power, and wireless communication.

Photonic microwave generation in the X- and K-band using integrated soliton microcombs

Microwave photonic technologies, which upshift the carrier into the optical domain to facilitate the generation and processing of ultrawide-band electronic signals at vastly reduced fractional bandwidths, have the potential to achieve superior performance compared to conventional electronics for targeted functions. For microwave photonic applications such as filters, coherent radars, subnoise detection, optical communications and low-noise microwave generation, frequency combs are key building blocks. By virtue of soliton microcombs, frequency combs can now be built using CMOS compatible photonic integrated circuits, operated with low power and noise, and have already been employed in system-level demonstrations. Yet, currently developed photonic integrated microcombs all operate with repetition rates significantly beyond those that conventional electronics can detect and process, compounding their use in microwave photonics. Here we demonstrate integrated soliton microcombs operating in two widely employed microwave bands, X- and K-band. These devices can produce more than 300 comb lines within the 3-dB-bandwidth, and generate microwave signals featuring phase noise levels below 105 dBc/Hz (140 dBc/Hz) at 10 kHz (1 MHz) offset frequency, comparable to modern electronic microwave synthesizers. In addition, the soliton pulse stream can be injection-locked to a microwave signal, enabling actuator-free repetition rate stabilization, tuning and microwave spectral purification, at power levels compatible with silicon-based lasers (<150 mW). Our results establish photonic integrated soliton microcombs as viable integrated low-noise microwave synthesizers. Further, the low repetition rates are critical for future dense WDM channel generation schemes, and can significantly reduce the system complexity of photonic integrated frequency synthesizers and atomic clocks.

Shear, Torsion and Pressure Tactile Sensor via Plastic Optofiber Guided Imaging

Object manipulation performed by robots refers to the art of controlling the shape and location of an object through force constraints with robot end-effectors, both robot hands, and grippers. The success of task execution is usually guaranteed by the sense of touch. In this work, we present an optical tactile sensor incorporating plastic optical fibers, transparent silicone rubber, and an off-the-shelf color camera that can detect: translational and rotational shear forces, and contact location and its normal force. Contact localization is possible thanks to the shear strain. Specifically, one of the layers stretches so that its thickness decreases. The decrease in the thickness results in the color change at the point of contact. Elastic behavior of the sensing media provides a robust rotational and translational shear detection mechanism when torque and planar force, respectively, are applied onto the sensing surface. Thanks to the plastic optofibers, signal processing electronics are placed away from the sensing surface making the sensor immune to hazardous environments. Machine learning techniques were used to benchmark the sensing performance of the sensor. By implementing a multi-output CNN model, the contact type was classified into normal and shear or torsional deformation and their corresponding continuous contact features were estimated.

MIDAS: A Miniature Device for Real‐Time Determination of the Identity and Energy of Particles in Space

AbstractThe Miniaturized Detector for Application in Space (MIDAS) device is developed in response to the requirement of the European Space Agency for a device whose size, power consumption, and radiation data output would increase the level of space‐flight crew autonomy regarding operational decisions related to radiation hazards. It is designed as a wristwatch‐dimension cube detector for measuring track direction and energy deposition in silicon pixels, as well as energy depositions by neutrons in a plastic scintillator, which is the core of the cube. Miniaturization was achieved by using fully depleted silicon pixel detectors with the signal processing electronics residing on pixel. The device concept, simulated performance, and first measurements are presented. Simulation results indicate that it is possible to discriminate all significant ions with the aid of appropriate variables constructed using the data provided by the device. 252Cf energy spectra were reconstructed successfully using measurements obtained with the first device prototype.

Self-powered control interface based on Gray code with hybrid triboelectric and photovoltaics energy harvesting for IoT smart home and access control applications

The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) in many living environments, such as smart home, has motivated the development of human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for the interactions between human and machine. In this paper, a sliding operation triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) based control disk interface, generating 3-bit binary-reflected Gray-code (BRGC), is developed by integrating copper electrodes, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film, photovoltaic cell, and electronic signal processing circuits. Eight sensing transitions are successfully achieved by the 3-bit BRGC encoding patterns with two electrodes. One electrode represents the binary bit “0”; another electrode represents the binary bit “1”. A third electrode located in the middle of the disk is utilized to indicate the sliding directions (inward or outward). The output signal detection mechanism and signal processing circuit have been developed, and a Bluetooth transmitter is employed for enabling controlling applications wirelessly. Besides the self-powered sensing characteristic of the triboelectric control disk, a hybrid energy harvester that can harvest triboelectric and photovoltaics energy is proposed to power the entire electronic control circuit. Finally, this triboelectric control disk is employed as a self-powered interface for smart home control and password authentication access control system, which exhibits promising reliability, practicality, and flexibility.

Voltage and Current Measuring Technologies for High Voltage Direct Current Supergrids: A Technology Review Identifying the Options for Protection, Fault Location and Automation Applications

After the occurrence of a DC-side feeder faults on HVDC transmission systems, protection and fault detection systems are anticipated to minimize their onerous effects, by initiating fault-clearing actions such as selective tripping of circuit breakers. Following the successful fault clearance, a subsequent action of significant importance, is the meticulous estimation of its location as a means to accelerate the line restoration, reduce down-time, limit recovery and repair costs, and hence elevate the overall availability and reliability of the transmission system. In order to capture DC-side fault transients for protection and fault location applications, measuring equipment is required to be placed on HVDC installations. This paper focuses primarily on reviewing the available technologies from the perspective of enabling protection, fault location and automation applications in HVDC systems. The review constitutes a mapping of protection and fault location functions, against the available voltage and current measuring technologies, ultimately unlocking insights for selecting measuring equipment based on the desirable characteristics of protection and fault location systems. The review also revealed that the frequency characteristics of each sensing scheme, primarily refers to the bandwidth of the primary sensor, whereas the overall bandwidth of the complete measuring scheme may be further restricted by the secondary converter and corresponding data acquisition system and signal processing electronics. It was also identified that the use of RC voltage dividers has prevailed for voltage measurements for HVDC applications, due to their superior advantages. The choice of a suitable device for current measurement, depends mainly on the fault detection method used and the frequency range it operates. In particular, the review revealed that fault detection and protection methods are mainly concentrated in a frequency spectrum ranging from a few kHz to 100 kHz, while fault location methods require measurements with a frequency range from 100 kHz up to 2 MHz.

Direct Integration of Carbon Nanotubes in CMOS, Towards an Industrially Feasible Process: A Review

This article reviews our work on direct integration of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in MEMS vehicles and shows initial results in realizing direct CNT integration in CMOS. Extraordinary properties of CNTs are fully exploited if they are closely integrated with signal processing electronics. An example device is a CNT-based gas sensor, where CNTs with their huge surface-to-volume ratio act as a very sensitive sensing element, and the CMOS circuits provide the necessary signal processing for a device to give a standardized, calibrated, low-noise output signal. Direct synthesis of CNTs in CMOS will enable wafer-level, low-cost fabrication of CNT-based devices. A major challenge is the 800–1000 °C CNT synthesis temperature requirement, whereas CMOS-compatible temperature is <300 °C. We synthesized CNTs on purpose-designed MEMS microheaters by local resistive heating to avoid over-heating the bulk of the chip. An applied electric field guides the CNTs to grow towards a second electrode to close electric circuits by making a Si-CNT-Si system. The process is fully controlled through electrical parameters, indicating that the process can be automated and scaled up to wafer-level for a low-cost, high-volume industrial manufacturing process. Characterization of the synthesized CNTs reveals that the hottest region (∼900 °C) ensures low-diameter, less dense and high-quality CNTs. Also, our statistical analysis shows that the electric field guiding is diameter-dependent, ensuring that only well-ordered low-diameter CNTs become part of an electric circuit. Through electrical analysis of the CNT-Si contacts, we found that the Si-CNT-Si systems show either near-ohmic or non-linear (Schottky-like) behaviours depending on the Si doping level. We also demonstrated functionalization of the locally grown CNTs. For direct CNT synthesis on CMOS chips, a high thermal gradient around the CNT growth structure is required to maintain CMOS-compatible temperature. Several promising designs of CNT growth structures and their thermomechanical simulations are presented. Partially suspended microheaters provide thermal isolation to avoid heating the active CMOS region, while keeping reliable mechanical stability. In our attempt to direct CNT-CMOS integration, a purpose-designed CMOS chip is manufactured using a standard AMS 350 nm CMOS process. Layout designs and optical characterization of several fabricated CMOS microstructures are presented.

Преобразование собственных значений задачи Захарова–Шабата при столкновении солитонов

Background and Objectives: The Zakharov–Shabat spectral problem allows to find soliton solutions of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Solving the Zakharov–Shabat problem gives both a discrete set of eigenvalues λj and a continuous one. Each discrete eigenvalue corresponds to an individual soliton with the real part Re(λj) providing the soliton velocity and the imaginary part Im(λj) determining the soliton amplitude. Solitons can be used in optical communication lines to compensate both non-linearity and dispersion. However, a direct use of solitons in return-to-zero signal encoding is inhibited. The interaction between solitions leads to the loss of transmitted data. The problem of soliton interaction can be solved using eigenvalues. The latter do not change when the solitons obey the nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Eigenvalue communication was realized recently using electronic signal processing. To increase the transmission speed the all-optical method for controlling eigenvalues should be developed. The presented research is useful to develop optical methods for the transformation of the eigenvalues. The purpose of the current paper is twofold. First, we intend to clarify the issue of whether the dispersion perturbation can not only split a bound soliton state but join solitons into a short oscillating period breather. The second goal of the paper is to describe the complicated dynamics and mutual interaction of complex eigenvalues of the Zakharov–Shabat spectral problem. Materials and Methods: Pulse propagation in single-mode optical fibers with a variable core diameter can be described using the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) which coefficients depends on the evolution coordinate. The NLSE with the variable dispersion coefficient was considered. The dispersion coefficient was described using a hyperbolic tangent function. The NLSE and the Zakharov– Shabat spectral problem were solved using the split-step method and the layer-peeling method, respectively. Results: The results of numerical analysis of the modification of soliton pulses under the effect of variable dispersion coefficient are presented. The main attention is paid to the process of transformation of eigenvalues of the Zakharov–Shabat problem. Collision of two in-phase solitons, which are characterized by two complex eigenvalues is considered. When the coefficients of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation change, the collision of the solitons becomes inelastic. The inelastic collision is characterized by the change of the eigenvalues. It is shown that the variation of the coefficients of the NLSE allows to control both real and imaginary parts of the eigenvalues. Two scenarios for the change of the eigenvalues were identified. The first scenario is characterized by preserving the zero real part of the eigenvalues. The second one is characterized by the equality of their imaginary parts. The transformation of eigenvalues is most effective at the distance where the field spectrum possesses a two-lobe shape. Variation of the NLSE coefficient can introduce splitting or joining of colliding soliton pulses. Conclusion: The presented results show that the eigenvalues can be changed only with a small variation of the NLSE coefficients. On the one hand, a change in the eigenvalues under the effect of inelastic soliton collision is an undesirable effect since the inelastic collision of solitons will lead to unaccounted modulation in soliton optical communication links. On the other hand, the dependence of the eigenvalues on the parameters of the colliding solitons allows to modulate the eigenvalues using all-fiber optical devices. Currently, the modulation of the eigenvalues is organized using electronic devices. Therefore, the transmission of information is limited to nanosecond pulses. For picosecond pulse communication, the development of all-optical modulation methods is required. The presented results will be useful in the development of methods for controlling optical solitons and soliton states of the Bose–Einstein condensate.

Large-area Si(Li) detectors for X-ray spectrometry and particle tracking in the GAPS experiment

The first lithium-drifted silicon (Si(Li)) detectors to satisfy the unique geometric, performance, and cost requirements of the General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) experiment have been produced by Shimadzu Corporation. The GAPS Si(Li) detectors will form the first large-area, relatively high-temperature Si(Li) detector system with sensitivity to X-rays to operate at high altitude. These 10 cm-diameter, 2.5 mm-thick, 4- or 8-strip detectors provide the active area, X-ray absorption efficiency, energy resolution, and particle tracking capability necessary for the GAPS exotic-atom particle identification technique. In this paper, the detector performance is validated on the bases of X-ray energy resolution and reconstruction of cosmic minimum ionizing particle (MIP) signals. We use the established noise model for semiconductor detectors to distinguish sources of noise due to the detector from those due to signal processing electronics. We demonstrate that detectors with either 4 strips or 8 strips can provide the required ≲4 keV (FWHM) X-ray energy resolution at flight temperatures of −35 to −45̂C, given the proper choice of signal processing electronics. Approximately 1000 8-strip detectors will be used for the first GAPS Antarctic balloon flight, scheduled for late 2021.

Nonlinear control of coherent absorption and its optical signal processing applications

All-optical data processing continues to attract significant interest as a way to overcome the electronic signal processing bottleneck of fiber telecommunication networks. Nonlinear optical devices such as limiters and saturable absorbers rely on intensity-dependent attenuation of light. However, making such devices using intensity-dependent multiphoton dissipation processes is an issue as these make complete absorption and transmission impossible. Here, we show that nonlinear phase retardation in an optical fiber can control the dissipation of coherent light waves interacting on a thin plasmonic absorber from total absorption to perfect transmission. The fiber’s instantaneous Kerr nonlinearity and the femtosecond coherent absorption time scale make this approach ultrafast. We report proof-of-principle demonstrations of all-optical intensity discrimination, power limiting, pulse restoration, pulse splitting, and signal transfer between carrier wavelengths within a fiber circuit. Our results indicate that nonlinear control of coherent absorption can imitate and outperform saturable and multiphoton absorption in terms of bandwidth and contrast.

Development of a Compact PET for integrated PET/CT/RT to Streamline and Enhance Functional/Anatomic Image-Guided Preclinical Radiation Oncology Researches

To present latest progress in developing a compact and high-performance PET that will be inserted inside an existing CT image-guided small animal irradiator to establish an integrated PET/CT/RT for substantially expanded and improved image-guided RT research capabilities. 1) PET will consist of 12 detector panels in a multi-polygon configuration to provide ∼10 cm diameter trans-axial and ∼3.2 cm axial image field-of-view: Each panel consists of 4 detectors that closely tiled in a 2x2 matrix: Each detector consists of 15x15 array of 1x1x20 mm LYSO scintillators, with each end of the scintillator array read out by an 8x8 array of 2x2 mm Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) array to provide dual-scintillator-end readout for measuring depth-of-interaction (DOI); 2) PC Board of discrete components based electronics have been developed for reading/processing total 768 detector output channels (after readout channel reduction) with both positive and negative polarity signals from SiPMs’ anodes and cathodes; 3) Standard detector performance evaluation have been conducted, including energy, coincidence timing, DOI, and intrinsic detector spatial resolutions; 4) Imaging performance based on rotating detector panels is under investigation. Two full detector panels have already been assembled and placed opposite to each other on a rotating table, with a radioactive rod phantom between the panels. Coincident data will be acquired by the detector pairs at 6 different rotating angles span over 180 degrees, with 30 degrees between each consecutive detector angles. Data corrections, including attenuation, scatter and random will be applied before the image reconstruction. Expanded dual positive and negative polarity signal readout and processing electronics works well. All 900 crystals on each detector panel can be very well identified; energy, coincidence timing, and DOI are 18%-34%, ∼2.0 ns, and 2.4 – 3.7 mm, respectively. The detector intrinsic spatial resolution is < 1.0 mm. Overall, detectors have achieved expected performance. As anticipated, ongoing phantom imaging study with dual rotating detector panels, potentially along with the performance evaluation study of the assembled PET system, will be reported in the conference. We have developed PET detectors and readout/processing electronics with desired performance, and expect the ongoing system construction and imaging studies will quantify the PET capability for functional image guidance for small animal radiotherapy research.

Zoom into picometer: a picoscale equivalent phase-difference-generating method for testing heterodyne interferometers without ultraprecision stages

A simple and low-budget method aiming to generate phase difference equivalent to picoscale-measured displacements of heterodyne interferometers is proposed. By changing the length of an interference arm in an interferometer-like optical configuration, a small phase difference between the two wavelengths is generated for creating the same effect as a picoscale-measured displacement of the heterodyne interferometer. It is derived and experimentally demonstrated that the zoom factor, defined as the ratio of displacements in a heterodyne interferometer and the proposed method leading to the same phase difference, is proportional to the beat frequency and generally in a scale of 10 − 9. Thus, instead of ultraprecision piezo-stages, only a commercial linear guide rail is equipped in the method, and rigorous vibrating isolation is not necessary. The method has been already used to evaluate signal-processing electronics of a heterodyne grating interferometer.

Demonstration of shift, scale, and rotation invariant target recognition using the hybrid opto-electronic correlator.

Previously, we had proposed a hybrid opto-electronic correlator (HOC), which can achieve the same functionality as that of a holographic optical correlator but without using any holographic medium. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that the HOC is capable of detecting objects in a scale, rotation, and shift invariant manner. First, the polar Mellin transformed (PMT) versions of two images are produced, using a combination of optical and electronic signal processing. The PMT images are then used as the reference and the query inputs for the HOC. The observed correlation signal is used to infer, with high accuracy, the relative scale and angular orientation of the original images. We also discuss practical constraints in reaching a high-speed implementation of such a system. In addition, we describe how these challenges may be overcome for producing an automated version of such a correlator.