"Smart" Optoelectronic Sensor System for Recognizing Targets

The Viewing Imager/Gimballed Instrumentation Laboratory and Analog Neural Three-Dimensional Processing Experiment (VIGILANTE) is a "smart" optoelectronic sensor system that features ultrafast processing of image information for recognition and tracking of targets. VIGILANTE serves as a test bed for generic automatic-target-recognition (ATR) applications, with emphasis on demonstrating ATR capabilities for military defense against cruise missiles. Other applications for sensor systems derived from VIGILANTE could include medical imaging and machine vision for industrial robots and robotic vehicles.