Non-spectroscopic sensing enabled by electro-optical reservoir computer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fully bio-inspired, non-spectroscopic sensing system combining a biomimetic sensor and an electro-optical reservoir computer to discriminate and quantify chemical mixtures in real time.

Contribution

It presents a novel bio-inspired sensing apparatus integrating a biomimetic sensor with an electro-optical reservoir computer for chemical analysis.

Findings

Successfully demonstrated discrimination of chemical mixtures.

Accurately determined constituent concentrations.

Simulated real-time chemical monitoring capabilities.

Abstract

A fully bio-inspired apparatus to perform non-spectroscopic sensing to discriminate, and determine the constituent concentrations of a chemical mixture is proposed. Here, fully bio-inspired means that it is comprised of a biomimetic sensor and a neuromorphic signal processor. The sensor is similar to the human eye in terms of its trichromat architecture and overlapping spectral response. The information processor is a neuromorphic system based on an electro-optical implementation of a reservoir computer. A time-stepping signal algorithm based on the Z-bilinear transformation has been developed to realistically simulate the electro-optical reservoir computer; this demonstrates the discrimination and chemical concentration determination tasks. We believe such an apparatus offers potential benefits in areas in which chemical composition needs to be monitored in real time, for example in chemical processing, and food-beverage (fermentation/brewing) and environmental monitoring.