We have experimentally demonstrated dynamically reconfigurable interconnections using liquid crystal light valves. Real time binary modulation devices such as Ferro-electric spatial light modulator optimized designs may be used effectively to achieve dynamically alterable interconnection modules. The modification of an optical matched filter has been proposed which utilizes effectively both amplitude and phase information to achieve superior discrimination capability. This architecture can update the target pattern in real time and consequently could be applied to target tracking. Currently, we have laboratory capabilities to perform optical pattern recognition in real-time.
Future projects involve digital multimedia data base searches using partial image as a cue.
Application of phase-based optical matching technique in speech processing is also being explored. Neural Networks and Associative Memory Several aspects of neural network research have been addressed. Recently, the memory has been made more robust by introducing a novel nonlinearity into the neuron formulation. It has been demonstrated that slight modification in the nonlinearity can tremendously affect neural network performance and training time. The new neural network has been applied to character recognition problems.