Blood flow tracking using optical correlation techniques

It has been previously shown that tracking small particle motion can be accomplished by tracking the speckle pattern it produces. The joint transform correlator and the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) acoustooptic correlator that were used to track speckle motion are described. Results demonstrate that optical correlation is capable of tracking speckle with an accuracy comparable to digital methods. Optical correlation offers potential advantages in speed, size, and power consumption