Certain optical means of image recognition, such as coherent optical image correlators, exhibit a serious problem of sensitivity to the scale and angular orientation of images under observation with respect to the reference image. Use of the wavelet transform processing allows one to significantly reduce such sensitivity of the optical correlators. In this article principles of operation of a coherent optical wavelet transform image correlator based on a well-known joint transform correlator are examined. Results of a computer simulation of the optical wavelet transform correlator using a two dimensional MHAT wavelet are demonstrated. A comparison of the sensitivity to the scale and angular mismatch between an observed and reference objects is provided for the joint transform correlator and the wavelet transform correlator.