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Information Acquisition, Processing and Display Division
Overview
Topics within the division include:
- Fundamental information science, such as information theory and coding for photonic systems and computational complexity and algorithms for sensing, processing and communications,
- Analog/Digital interfaces, including analog and digital processing in sensors and transceivers and digital to analog interfaces for multimedia and sentient environments,
- Digital analysis of optical data, including pattern recognition, target identification and tracking and biometric analysis,
- Physical information processing, including field transformations in thin and volume holograms, photonic crystals and spectral holograms for applications in information display, sensing and storage and nonlinear transformations for information processing and switching.
- Physical limits of information, including optics in quantum, molecular and mesoscopic computing systems.
Abbie Watnik, US Naval Research Laboratory, United States, Chair
Technical Groups
Applied Spectroscopy (IS)
This group emphasizes the application of optical spectroscopy to detection and sensing problems in environmental, atmospheric, combustion, defense, and biomedical fields. Examples of applied spectroscopy might include VNIR sensing and processing for food characterization and process control, optical techniques used in forensics, chem/bio detection and warning applications, and chemical analysis.
Display Technology (IT)
This group focuses on the various aspects of display technologies including the physical display media, algorithms needed to visualize data, systems and subsystems that present the display, and data formatting needed to interface with the physical display technologies used. New device technologies used for display incorporating OLEDs, holography, MEMS, etc. are within the scope of this group. The evolving field of 3-D display including 3-D data formation, lightfield processing, and 3-D television and electronic cinema are also within the scope of this group. Display holography has been a thrust of this group and expanded efforts on digital as well as analog processes and materials are expected. Techniques for improving visual quality of displays and reducing energy consumption are also of relevance to the group. The group will also investigate display and sensor technologies used for creating augmented reality and interactive environments including interactive control and display algorithms, opto-electronic interfaces, mechanical devices and optical sensors required for implementing interactivity.
Environmental Sensing (IE)
This group emphasizes sensing for the environment. Environmental sensing involves those tools and processing techniques to characterize the environment including DIAL and LIDAR, hyperspectral monitoring, detection, processing and characterization, surveying applications, atmospheric propagation, pollution monitoring, and remote imaging. Also included in this area is remote sensing for military and commercial applications such as land management, target detection, and disaster monitoring.
Holography and Diffractive Optics (FH)
This group focuses on the design and implementation of holographic and diffractive-optic devices and systems for scientific, commercial, and other applications. The development of new approaches as well as materials needed to construct both analog and digital holograms are studied. The scope of this technical group covers holography technology, holographic materials, digital holographic imaging, holographic microscope, computer-generated holograms, diffractive optical elements, holographic nano-fabrication methods, diffractive-optic micro-manipulation, spatial light modulators for phase modulation, 3D display using spatial light modulators, holographic measurements of 3D structures, phase unwrapping, and other related topics.
Image Sensing and Pattern Recognition (IR)
This group is concerned with analog and digital processing in sensing and imaging systems, algorithms for sensor system control and for data analysis, sensor networks and data fusion, pattern recognition and tracking. Examples include computational image formation (e.g. computed tomography, image interferometry), image compression, image enhancement, image evaluation, image quality, image reconstruction, inverse problems, pattern recognition, phase retrieval, properties of image transforms, signal recovery, signal synthesis, and superresolution. Emerging areas within this group include integrated computational imaging systems, sparse aperture sensor arrays, biometric sensors for information and physical security, real-time pattern recognition systems and novel diffuse and projective tomographies.
Optics in Digital Systems (ID)
This group focuses on utilization of optical and optoelectronic devices and systems for digital data storage, processing, interconnection and networking. The group focuses both on the physical representation of information and on coding and communication protocols for effective utilization of photonic systems. Emerging areas within this group include optical interconnections and optical clock distribution for high performance computing, nanomaterials and microresonators for spatio-spectral data storage and coding schemes for all-optical communications.
