Experiments investigating the possibility of optical processing through turbulent media were performed. A liquid crystal television (LCTV) operating in a phase-mostly mode was utilized to simulate turbulence. A phase-switching interferometric technique for removing the phase distortion created by the turbulence was also investigated.

Diffusers have frequently been used in holography to overcome the problem of limited dynamic range in the recording material. The limited dynamic range is even more of a problem when recording the Fourier transform of an image as is done when making matched filters for Vander Lugt-type correlators. A diffuser designed to be used when holographically storing matched filters must spread the energy over the recording material, but not diffuse it so much that information is lost. The key is to design a diffuser whose parameters are dependent on the recording material and not so much on the input.

The optical correlator originally proposed by Vander Lugt [1] has been extensively investigated as a laboratory novelty but not widely employed in application-specific pattern recognition systems. This result is due in part to the classical matched filter being sensitive to rotation and scale variations of the imagery. Two major avenues of approaching this image distortion limitation are currently being pursued.