Coherent correlator design analysis for the implementation of deep learning networks
Philip M. Birch, Habiba Akter, Rupert C. D. Young, Chris R. Chatwin · Journal of the Optical Society of America A · 2023
Optical signal processing can reduce the electrical power consumption required over that required by graphically processing units. There remain a number of challenges to overcome. Noise is potentially much larger in optical systems than in their electronic counterparts, and some of the operations, such as a bias addition, are not easy to implement in free space processors. This paper analyzes a proposed design that utilizes a camera and lightweight electronic processing to perform the convolutional layers. Simulations are performed to compare the expected performance against an ideal system that cannot be physically realized and a proposed architecture. The impact of speckle noise in the system is analyzed and methods to reduce this are proposed.