Optical preprocessing for increased system throughput

The use of optical preprocessing to increase the rate at which images are processed is examined. For partially coherent illumination, the problem is to design the pupil of the imaging system so that the number of calculations in a postdetection linear filter can be reduced, thereby increasing the rate of processing. The design of the imaging system is a nonlinear apodization problem, which is solved by using parameter-optimization techniques. The results of a numerical example indicate that optical preprocessing can be used to increase processing throughput. The results also indicate that the coherence properties of the illumination strongly influence the effectiveness of the predetection optics: the maximum effectiveness occurs in the case of incoherent illumination.