The image recognition technology that underlies today’s autonomous cars and aerial drones depends on artificial intelligence: the computers essentially teach themselves to recognize objects like a dog, a pedestrian crossing the street or a stopped car.
The problem is that the computers running the artificial intelligence algorithms are currently too large and slow for future applications like handheld medical devices.
Now, researchers at Stanford University have devised a new type of artificially intelligent camera system that can classify images faster and more energy efficiently, and that could one day be built small enough to be embedded in the devices themselves, something that is not possible today.
The researchers took a step toward that technology by marrying two types of computers into one, creating a hybrid optical-electrical computer designed specifically for image analysis.
The first layer of the prototype camera is a type of optical computer, which does not require the power-intensive mathematics of digital computing. The second layer is a traditional digital electronic computer.
The optical computer layer operates by physically preprocessing image data, filtering it in multiple ways that an electronic computer would otherwise have to do mathematically. Since the filtering happens naturally as light passes through the custom optics, this layer operates with zero input power. This saves the hybrid system a lot of time and energy that would otherwise be consumed by computation.
In both simulations and real-world experiments, the team used the system to successfully identify airplanes, automobiles, cats, dogs and more within natural image settings.
Some future version of our system would be especially useful in rapid decision-making applications, like autonomous vehicles.Eventually, their smaller, faster technology could replace the trunk-size computers that now help cars, drones and other technologies learn to recognize the world around them.
Related videos:
MIT’s Self-Driving Scooters use same Software System as autonomous Cars and Golf Carts
Driverless Cars could save time and fuel in Platoons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fjNSUWX7nQ
News Source: https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/17/new-ai-camera-revolutionize-autonomous-vehicles/
Watch more Technology videos at our YouTube Channel Qualitypointtech
