Ultrafast Neuromorphic Photonic Image Processing with a VCSEL Neuron
Abstract
The ever-increasing demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems is underlining a significant requirement for new, AI-optimised hardware. Neuromorphic (brain-like) processors are one highly-promising solution, with photonic-enabled realizations receiving increasing attention. Among these, approaches based upon Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) are attracting interest given their favourable attributes and mature technology. Here, we demonstrate a hardware-friendly neuromorphic photonic spike processor, using a single VCSEL, for all-optical image edge-feature detection. This exploits the ability of a VCSEL-based photonic neuron to integrate temporally-encoded pixel data at high speed; and fire fast (100ps-long) optical spikes upon detecting desired image features. Furthermore, the photonic system is combined with a software-implemented spiking neural network yielding a full platform for complex image classification tasks. This work therefore highlights the potentials of VCSEL-based platforms for novel, ultrafast, all-optical neuromorphic processors interfacing with current computation and communication systems for use in future light-enabled AI and computer vision functionalities.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2110.01617,
title = {Ultrafast Neuromorphic Photonic Image Processing with a VCSEL Neuron},
author = {Joshua Robertson and Paul Kirkland and Juan Arturo Alanis and Matěj Hejda and Julián Bueno and Gaetano Di Caterina and Antonio Hurtado},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.01617},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
Main article: pages 1-11, 6 figures. Supplementary information: pages 12-18, 6 figures