An embedded optical flow processor for visual navigation using optical correlator technology

The conceptual design of an embedded high performance opto-electronic optical flow processor is presented, which is designed for navigation applications in the field of robotics (ground, aerial, marine) and space (satellites, landing vehicles). It is based on 2D fragment image motion determination by 2D correlation. To meet the real-time performance requirements the principle of joint transform correlation (JTC) and advanced optical correlator technology is used. The paper recalls briefly the underlying principles of optical flow computation and optical correlation, it shows the system layout and the conceptual design for the optical flow processor and it gives preliminary performance results based on a high fidelity simulation of the complete optical processing chain.