Optical Symbolic Processor for Expert System Execution
Abstract
The goal of the Optical Symbolic Processor for Expert System Execution program is to develop concepts for optical computers which can perform real-time symbolic processing. The program is divided into two sections, architecture development and development of a device for reconfigurable interconnects. In the first quarter of the program, only architecture development work was performed. The approach for this phase of the program has been to examine computational models of computer languages and determine the primitive operations required. Possible optical implementations of these primitives were then examined and evaluated. In general, a top down approach was taken with the goal of a direct optical implementation of the desired primitive operations. It was found that the computational requirements of logic languages and functional languages are primitive operations which involve manipulation of complex data structures such as graphs and trees, and that the execution of the languages can be described as manipulations of those data structures. The representation of the complex data structures imply that the representations must be exact (digital) and that some means to denote connections between data items, such as pointers, is required. Since the representation between data items is more important than the actual items stored, the most important functions involve the manipulation of the data structures. Examination of the optical architectures available to represent and implement the functions identified showed some way to perform location addressable memory was needed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1986
- Accession Number
- ADA174955
Entities
People
- Aloke Guha
- Matthew Derstine
- Raja Ramnarayan
Organizations
- Honeywell International, Inc.