LCT

LCT is an acronym that can refer to several topics depending on context. Among its uses, the two most widely encountered are Landing Craft, Tank, an amphibious assault vessel used by Allied forces in World War II, and the Linear Canonical Transform, a mathematical tool used in signal processing and optics.

Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) were large, shallow-draft boats designed to deliver armored units from seagoing ships to beaches. They featured a bow ramp for rapid unloading and were generally unarmored, with crews and troops aboard as they approached enemy shores. Variants were used to carry one or more tanks or other armored vehicles, plus accompanying troops, and worked with larger ships in amphibious assault plans. LCTs saw service in multiple theaters, including North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and the Normandy landings, and remained in some use after the war in various auxiliary roles before being retired.

Linear Canonical Transform is a family of integral transforms that generalize the Fourier transform, the fractional Fourier transform, and related operations. It is defined by a parameter matrix with unit determinant and can describe combined operations such as scaling, chirp multiplication, and rotation of the time–frequency plane. In optics and signal processing, the LCT provides a unified framework for modeling and implementing linear optical systems and time–frequency manipulations. Discrete versions are used in digital processing as a versatile alternative to the standard Fourier transform.

Outside these fields, LCT can denote various organizational, technical, or industry terms depending on context. Because acronyms are ambiguous, the intended meaning should be inferred from the surrounding subject matter or a dedicated disambiguation.