An Automated Laser Seeker Performance Evaluation System (ALSPES) has been developed at the US Army Missile Research and Development Command (USAMIRADCOM) which utilizes a mini-computer to implement the control functions required to test electro-optical guidance systems. Software programs have been written for a series of tests which fully evaluate E/O seeker performance. Test conditions are fed into a CRT terminal and the minicomputer conducts a fully-automated, "hands-off" test by varying such parameters as laser energy, target position and velocity, seeker position and angular rate, and time separation between targets. This paper will discuss the types of automated tests performed, the electro-optical test equipment utilized and the layout of the test facility, the minicomputer to test equipment interface, and the cost savings resulting from the development of this automated test facility.

Optical Signal Processing systems are using more sophisticated control systems to improve their performance. An example of this is the minicomputer controlled digital system for an Optical Radar Signal Processor developed for the Army's Ballistic Missile Defense Advanced Technology Center (BMDATC). An overview of the optical radar signal processor is presented, highlighting those areas requiring the use of digital system control. The subsystems described include a digital frequency synthesizer used for timing the lasers, the radar signal generator, and the input/output devices, a reference mask generator used to generate the matching signal for use in the optical matched filter and for automatic system linearization, and an output data sampling system used to acquire data from the output plane of the optical processor.

A technique for real-time measurement of interferograms is described which circumvents the common sources of error in traditional methods of analysis. By nulling the interferometer and simultaneously measuring the phase over a rectalinear grid, errors due to geometric distortion in the interferometer (which produces apparent coma terms in the analysis of straight line interferograms), uneven pupil illumination (which shifts the apparent location of the fringe peaks), and the difficulties in fitting and interpolation of polynomials to unevenly sampled pupil functions are eliminated. Data is not interpolated or artificially smoothed, so localized irregularities in the wavefront are visible in the results. Because on-line computer processing is used, contour and isometric plots are displayed less than two minutes after data taking is completed. A unique interface design permits utilization of virtually all of the information present in the input video signal. By taking thousands of measurements per minute at each point in the wavefront, and extending the measurements over several minutes, the effects of vibration and turbulence are averaged out of the data. With a reasonably stable interferometer, the effective instrument bandwidth can be reduced to .01 Hz. providing worst point peak-to-peak repeata-bilities of successive measurements of better than λ/100. For repeatabilities of λ/20, data taking times can be reduced below two seconds.

Fiber optics measurements with a computer-controlled digitizing oscilloscope signal processing system. are described with emphasis on calculation, of fiber transmission characteristics. Automated measurements described include numerical aperture, attenuation, pulse spreading and the use of Fast Fourier Transform processing techniques to obtain the magnitude and phase of the frequency-response function as well as the impulse response function.

This paper describes a radiometric measurement system built atound a programmable microprocessor. The placement of the microprocessor at the center of the system architecture allows for optimum performance of a number of diverse and complex measurement tasks through software coupling. System design parameters are reviewed, and a number of specific applications are described. Data is included for measurements in which the system is used in spectral radiometer, transmissometer receiver, process control analysis and reflectometer applications. Finally, additional system conditioning features are discussed which make possible, through software, the optimization of the above measurement tasks.

The TN-1710 serves as an example of applications of microcomputers in signal analyzers. The microcomputer used in this analyzer is a Digital Equipment Corporation LSI-11 (or LSI-11-2, the newer, higher speed, 28K CPU memory version). Operational programs for the microcomputer are stored on ROM (read-only memory) chips, as are some data reduction programs. All programs stored on ROMs are stored in machine language. Flextran, a higher level language long in use on other Tracor Northern data systems is available on ROM as well as on flexible diskette for conversational ease of advanced programming. Applications of the TN-1710 include nuclear pulse height analysis and multichannel scaling, X-ray spectroscopy, averaging of analog and digital signals, and acquisition and averaging of UV, Visible and NIR spectra with cooled and intensified solid state array detectors. (1) Operation and applications of the TN-1710 and its ROM and Flextran programs for UV, Visible and NIR measurements is described. Special attention is paid to the time resolution on transient optical signals.

Computer-based image processing and display capabilities can be provided by many different architectures with varying degrees of efficiency and complexity. This paper provides a survey of the capabilities of hardware currently available in the commercial market and describes several experimental image processing systems exhibiting a number of unique fea-tures. A new integrated display/processor architecture is also suggested which, when compared to existing systems, offers considerably enhanced performance without substantial increases in hardware complexity. This approach features a memory-centered design in which a multiported memory is shared between the processor and display, memory is interleaved using skewed storage techniques, and dynamic reconfiguration of the memory and interface is provided. The advantages of this architecture over the standard computer plus add-on display for operations such as image compression, multispectral classification, digital filtering, and image display are described.

Early Image Analysis instrumentation, other than that done strictly visually, operated on single line scans and usually presented the operator with a graphical, i.e. chart recorder, output. Two dimensionality was incorporated in the early sixties with the developff t of the isodensitracer, by Technical Operations, which produced a contour plot of optical density over a two dimensional image area. As with the single line scan devices further data reduction was usually done visually.

A large part of computing is involved with transferring data in and out of the computer interface. Vast amounts of information are traditionally stored or designed to be interpreted visually by human operators. This information must be made acceptable to the computer by either coding it for binary input or by giving the computer a visual input device. A digitally controlled image detector is one approach to this problem. This paper presents a number of interesting applications which have been made successful through the use of a digital camera with computer control of the X-Y scanning of the image.

The computer, aided by photo/optical digitizing equipments, can identify and recognize complex patterns and shapes faster and more accurately than the human eye. Since the late 1960's, Photo Digitizing Systems has been building hardware and creating software to solve the problems of applying this technology to photographic and real time instrumentation problems. This paper describes the principles of the photo digitizing process, typical target identification techniques, and hardware applications.

Closed circuit TV is useful for many scientific and industrial applications which involve actual manipulation of the data in the video signal as compared to simple human observations of a TV monitor screen. The TV system may be used as a measuring instrument, for pattern recognition, control purposes, and in other areas of instrumentation. Advantages and limitations of the TV camera are outlined as well as means of non-conventional operation. Various image manipulation and data reduction techniques are discussed.

Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy using high quality cryogenic detectors offers the capability of producing very high signal to noise spectra with very short (approx. 30 ms) measurement times. This capability has been combined with the inherent wavelength accuracy and stability of these instruments to provide very high sensitivity achieved by long term signal averaging. Much of the commercial success of FT-IR can be attributed to this sensitivity and the resultant ability to detect and quantitate very small amounts of trace materials in a mixture using interactive absorbance subtraction techniques. More recently, however, the speed of FT-IR has been increasingly applied in commercial applications requiring time dependent spectral measurements. The time resolution required can vary from a few nanoseconds as in the case of time resolved spectroscopy to a few minutes for toxic gas analysis. Dedication of modern minicomputer technology to FT-IR applications has made most of these experiments possible.

Sample spacing errors in interferometer spectrometers have long been known to cause spectral errors and noise. To confirm the predictions of simplified analyses, experimental spectra were taken using a laboratory interferometer with controlled sampling errors. Both wide and narrow band sources and errors were investigated and results are in qualitative agreement with theory.

An Interactive Multitasking Executive has been developed based on Digilab's FTS software and Data General's RDOS(R) general purpose disc operating system. The use of RDOS as a basis for IMX results in a file oriented system, providing file maintenance, protection and disc memory management, multitasking environment, expandability in memory mapped systems and capability for using higher level languages and foreground/ background operation. Furthermore, IMX utilizes the RDOS spooling feature. This allows device commands to be buffered as they are generated by IMX and to be transferred to the peripheral devices at their slower rate, thus enhancing system throughput. The IMX system permits the operation and control of the Fourier Transform Spectrometer through a simple and user-oriented command and parameter structure, which can be expanded with user created command and stored parameter tables. Multi-spectrometer and multitask operation is trivially achieved by the user due to the operating system memory resource allocation. Examples of multitasking multispectrometer and various user program applications are provided. The application of IMX to Gas Chromatography/Infrared (GC/IR) measurements and the generation "infragrams" (reconstructed functional group chromatograms) is discussed.

A computer procedure for determining molecular absorption line parameters is described. Techniques are included in this procedure which overcome many of the difficulties associated with obtaining strength and width parameters for overlapped lines of atmospheric gasses.

The purpose of this article is to describe some general properties of multiplexing optical systems and to provide a comparison between the advantages and disadvantages that characterize Fourier and digitally encoded instruments.

The use of video detection in picosecond spectroscopy is reviewed briefly. A one dimensional video detection system is described. It includes a simple CCTV camera as the optical detector. A two dimensional video detector which utilizes a silicon intensified detector head is also discussed. This system has a microcomputer as an integral part of the detection system. Finally, two experiments in which video detection have been used are briefly described.

The second generation Optical Multichannel Analyzer (OMA 2(r)) combines a general purpose optical signal processing computer with self scanned array and vidicon detectors. The basic instrument configuration is suitable for time resolved spectroscopy in the picosecond, nanosecond, microsecond, and millisecond time regimes. This work reviews the way this instrument system has been used in these time resolution areas. Emphasis is on new techniques for streak camera picosecond analysis, microsecond analysis with mechanical scanning, and millisecond time resolved spectra with both vidicon and self scanned Reticon (r) detectors.

Techniques of picosecond laser spectroscopy in Physics, Chemistry and Biology using Video systems are discussed.