An experimental demonstration of neuromorphic sensing of chemical species using electro-optical reservoir computing

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first experimental photonic reservoir computing system for chemical discrimination, mimicking human sensory processing with a neuromorphic electro-optical approach, showing practical real-time sensing capabilities.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental demonstration of a neuromorphic chemical sensing system using photonic reservoir computing, bridging simulation and practical implementation.

Findings

Successful discrimination of three chemicals

Comparison with numerical simulations shows promising performance

Feasibility of real-time, intelligent chemical sensing demonstrated

Abstract

A chemical discrimination system based on photonic reservoir computing is demonstrated experimentally for the first time. The system is inspired by the way humans perceive and process visual sensory information. The electro-optical reservoir computing system is a photonic analogue of the human nervous system with the read-out layer acting as the 'brain', and the sensor that of the human eye. A task-specific optimisation of the system is implemented, and the performance of the system for the discrimination between three chemicals is presented. The results are compared to the previously published numerical simulation. This publication provides a feasibility assessment and a demonstration of a practical realisation of photonic reservoir computing for a new neuromorphic sensing system - the next generation sensor with a built-in 'intelligence' which can be trained to 'understand' and to make a real time sensing decision based on the training data.