ABSTRACT
Optical computing consists of all methods for intentionally manipulating optically represented data for useful purposes. This chapter presents a short history of the field of optical computing and attempts to show how different sub-fields grew from their predecessors. In the "tilted plane processor" the input plane and the output plane are both tilted, and an anamorphic telescope is used. The resulting image requires no output slit to prevent distortion. This processor remains today one of the most sophisticated optical computing systems ever built. A basic approach to optical pattern recognition is called “diffraction pattern sampling”, which bases pattern recognition and classification decisions on distribution of power in the optically obtained Fourier transform of the object. Coherent optical spectrum analyzers with bandwidths as wide as 1 GHz have been made and with time bandwidth products as high as 1000. Integrated optic versions of such systems, using surface acoustic waves; have also been studied and built.
