USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Ravindra A Athale

John N Lee

Harold H Szu

Jerry A Blodgett

William C Collins

P Denzil Stilwell, Jr

C Lee Giles

Peter B Rolsma

A digital acousto-optic device for performing vector-matrix multiplication. The device comprises two multitransducer acousto-optic cells imaged onto each other. The first cell receives the elements of the input vector in parallel. The second cell receives the elements of sequential row vectors of the matrix in parallel. The data in the two cells act to modulate a light beam passing therethrough. The modulated light beam is detected to produce an output data stream containing the elements of the output vector. The invention uses binary coded data for high accuracy (.about.16-bits).

High accuracy digital acousto-optic matrix computer

Disclosed as a beamforming system, particularly useful for seismic exploration or undersea surveillance, in which data processing of the system is done optically. Sensor outputs are subjected to plural sets of time delays, and the system beams formed optically. Four embodiments are presented of the optical processing hardware.

Optical beamformers

A triple matrix product processor for optically multiplying three matrices U. G, and V, comprising a matrix-vector processor for sequentially multiplying each column of an M.times.N matrix G by at least a row of a P.times.M matrix U so that the 1.sup.th column of G is multiplied by the at least a row of matrix U producing at least the il.sup.th element of an intermediate result. The triple matrix product processor further includes an outer product processor for multiplying at least the il.sup.th element of the intermediate result with the 1.sup.th row of an N.times.Q matrix V producing at least a row of an N.times.N outer product matrix in a first plane, and a time-integrating optical detector array for summing the light impinging on the first plane from the outer product processor to produce all or a portion of a P.times. triple matrix product after all of the N columns of the matrix G and all of the N rows of the matrix V have been cycled through the processors.

Triple matrix product optical processors using combined time-and-space

An optical matrix multiplier using two linear modulating arrays in which the columns of the first matrix to be multiplied control the modulation of one array and the rows of the second matrix control the other array. Light is directed through all combinations of elements on the two arrays and the resultant beams measured by individual elements on a two-dimensional detector array. The detecting elements time integrates the intensity of light falling on each of them, which value corresponds to an element of the product of the two matrices. The invention may be implemented among other ways with two linear electrooptical arrays, a linear array of light emitting diodes and a linear electrooptical array, or two Bragg cells and a pulsed light source.

Optical matrix-matrix multiplier based on outer product decomposition

An optical processor that can compute the moments of a two-dimensional image in parallel. The image is placed at the plane of a holographic mask which is disposed in the front focal plane of a Fourier-transforming lens and each of the desired moments is found at a respective one of a plurality of photodetectors arrayed in the back focal plane of the lens.

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Annandale, VA, United States of America

Ravindra A Athale