Publications
Adaptive Sensor Optimization and Cognitive Image Processing Using Autonomous Optical Neuroprocessors
Measurement and signal intelligence demands has created new requirements for information management and interoperability as they affect surveillance and situational awareness. Integration of on-board autonomous learning and adaptive control structures within a remote sensing platform architecture would substantially improve the utility of intelligence collection by facilitating real-time optimization of measurement parameters for variable field conditions. A problem faced by conventional digital implementations of intelligent systems is the conflict between a distributed parallel structure on a sequential serial interface functionally degrading bandwidth and response time. In contrast, optically designed networks exhibit the massive parallelism and interconnect density needed to perform complex cognitive functions within a dynamic asynchronous environment. Recently, all-optical self-organizing neural networks exhibiting emergent collective behavior which mimic perception, recognition, association, and contemplative learning have been realized using photorefractive holography in combination with sensory systems for feature maps, threshold decomposition, image enhancement, and nonlinear matched filters. Such hybrid information processors depart from the classical computational paradigm based on analytic rules-based algorithms and instead utilize unsupervised generalization and perceptron-like exploratory or improvisational behaviors to evolve toward optimized solutions. These systems are robust to instrumental systematics or corrupting noise and can enrich knowledge structures by allowing competition between multiple hypotheses. This property enables them to rapidly adapt or self-compensate for dynamic or imprecise conditions which would be unstable using conventional linear control models. By incorporating an intelligent optical neuroprocessor in the back plane of an imaging sensor, a broad class of high-level cognitive image analysis problems including geometric change detection, pattern recognition, and correlated feature extraction can be realized in an inherently parallel fashion without information bottlenecking or external supervision, Using this approach, we believe that autonomous control systems embodied with basic adaptive decision-theoretic capabilities can be developed for imaging and surveillance sensors to improve discrimination in stressing operational environments.