Dual adaptive training of photonic neural networks

Photonic neural network (PNN) is a remarkable analog artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator that computes with photons instead of electrons to feature low latency, high energy efficiency, and high parallelism. However, the existing training approaches cannot address the extensive accumulation of systematic errors in large-scale PNNs, resulting in a significant decrease in model performance in physical systems. Here, we propose dual adaptive training (DAT) that allows the PNN model to adapt to substantial systematic errors and preserves its performance during the deployment. By introducing the systematic error prediction networks with task-similarity joint optimization, DAT achieves the high similarity mapping between the PNN numerical models and physical systems and high-accurate gradient calculations during the dual backpropagation training. We validated the effectiveness of DAT by using diffractive PNNs and interference-based PNNs on image classification tasks. DAT successfully trained large-scale PNNs under major systematic errors and preserved the model classification accuracies comparable to error-free systems. The results further demonstrated its superior performance over the state-of-the-art in situ training approaches. DAT provides critical support for constructing large-scale PNNs to achieve advanced architectures and can be generalized to other types of AI systems with analog computing errors.

Optical multi-task learning using multi-wavelength diffractive deep neural networks

Photonic neural networks are brain-inspired information processing technology using photons instead of electrons to perform artificial intelligence (AI) tasks. However, existing architectures are designed for a single task but fail to multiplex different tasks in parallel within a single monolithic system due to the task competition that deteriorates the model performance. This paper proposes a novel optical multi-task learning system by designing multi-wavelength diffractive deep neural networks (D2NNs) with the joint optimization method. By encoding multi-task inputs into multi-wavelength channels, the system can increase the computing throughput and significantly alle-viate the competition to perform multiple tasks in parallel with high accuracy. We design the two-task and four-task D2NNs with two and four spectral channels, respectively, for classifying different inputs from MNIST, FMNIST, KMNIST, and EMNIST databases. The numerical evaluations demonstrate that, under the same network size, mul-ti-wavelength D2NNs achieve significantly higher classification accuracies for multi-task learning than single-wavelength D2NNs. Furthermore, by increasing the network size, the multi-wavelength D2NNs for simultaneously performing multiple tasks achieve comparable classification accuracies with respect to the individual training of multiple single-wavelength D2NNs to perform tasks separately. Our work paves the way for developing the wave-length-division multiplexing technology to achieve high-throughput neuromorphic photonic computing and more general AI systems to perform multiple tasks in parallel.

Aggregated Network for Massive MIMO CSI Feedback

In frequency division duplexing (FDD) mode, it is necessary to send the channel state information (CSI) from user equipment to base station. The downlink CSI is essential for the massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system to acquire the potential gain. Recently, deep learning is widely adopted to massive MIMO CSI feedback task and proved to be effective compared with traditional compressed sensing methods. In this paper, a novel network named ACRNet is designed to boost the feedback performance with network aggregation and parametric RuLU activation. Moreover, valid approach to expand the network architecture in exchange of better performance is first discussed in CSI feedback task. Experiments show that ACRNet outperforms loads of previous state-of-the-art feedback networks without any extra information.