Abstract: A laser beam alignment device which has a movable beam-deflection mirror, two motors for modifying the orientation of the mirror, two incremental coders associated with the motors, a thermoelectric detector placed between the target to be reached by the beam and the deflection mirror and able to supply voltage differences in accordance with the misalignment of the beam and an electronic processing system for controlling the motors as a function of voltage differences and pulses produced by the coders, so as to keep the beam aligned on the target.

Abstract: A process for the automatic recognition of an image (I) on the basis of a corresponding reference image, including obtaining, by optoelectronic detection means (C), signals representing both the image to be recognized and the reference image, digitizing (in CAN) and recording the respective signals in a memory (M), using a processing unit (UT) to determine the coordinates of respective characteristic contour lines in the image to be recognized and the reference image, segmenting the respective contour lines and coding the segments (Si), attributing to each segment a pair of values (.rho..sub.i, .theta..sub.i) relating to its length (.rho..sub.i) and its angle (.theta..sub.i) compared with a reference direction, and comparing the respective pairs of values while seeking coincidence between the large segments of the contour to be recognized and the reference contour. The process has application to the recognition of shapes, particularly in robotics.