Abstract

Optics has advantages for overcoming limitations arising when applying existing electronic technologies to real-time parallel computation. In particular, spatial light modulators (SLMs) permit simultaneous storage, multiplication, and/or complex interconnection. A simple expert uses an SLM crossbar switch to provide a flexible and fast implementation of combinatorial logic. A second expert system, illustrated using medical diagnosis, uses the Bayes theorem to update recursively the probabilities of various illnesses given additional symptom information. The a priori probability matrices are stored in SLMs which provide matrix–vector multiplication and interconnection. Computation of the best next symptom question is possible because of the high speed.

© 1987 Optical Society of America

Optical expert systems

Harold H. Szu and H. John Caulfield
Appl. Opt. 26(10) 1943-1947 (1987)

Optical expert system based on matrix-algebraic formulation

Jack Y. Jau, F. Kiamilev, Y. Fainman, S. Esener, and Sing H. Lee
Appl. Opt. 27(24) 5170-5175 (1988)

Parallel electro-optical rule-based system for fast execution of expert systems

Ahmed Louri and Jongwhoa Na
Appl. Opt. 32(11) 1863-1875 (1993)

Inference engine for expert system by using optical array logic

Masaya Iwata, Jun Tanida, and Yoshiki Ichioka
Appl. Opt. 31(26) 5604-5613 (1992)

Design of an optical content-addressable parallel processor for expert systems

Ahmed Louri and Jongwhoa Na
Appl. Opt. 34(23) 5053-5063 (1995)