Abstract: A Vander Lugt optical correlator adapted to be mounted on a printed circuit board or other mounting means usable with or in a personal computer utilizing a monochromatic coherent polarized light source, a folded optical path with optics that perform light beam collimation and Fourier transformations, SLMs for scene and filter inputs and a CCD detector array at the correlation plane. The module may be of any selected configuration, such as, a parallelopiped, or a disc, either of which may be hollow, of solid opaque material for light paths formed therein, of a transparent media without passages, or of multiple sections for packaging shape, light path length compensation, component mounting etc. The circuit board may contain electronics required to operate all of the correlators electronic components.

Abstract: A miniature multi-temperature radiometric reference is placed in an intermediate image plane (20) of a thermal imaging optical system in order to correct, in a real-time manner, non-uniformities among detectors (30). The radiometric reference comprises at least two reference elements (10) mounted on a thermolelectric cooler (TEC) (1) which may have several stages (6). The reference elements (10) are mounted on the same platform (3) of the TEC (1). Each element (10) has a surface (11), having a substantially uniform temperature, within the depth of focus at the intermediate image plane (20). All of the radiometric reference surfaces (11) are maintained at different temperatures, which can be simultaneously above and below the ambient temperature. This enables determination of a normalized detector response, and subsequent correction of the response of each detector (30) as a function of temperature throughout the range characterized by the temperatures of the reference surfaces (11).