NSF Award
8420523
Research is conducted on novel digital image processing systems incorporating crossbar processing architectures and optical interconnection techniques to implement the crossbar and other busing schemes. The research addresses the problems of speed and throughput limitations of current digital image processing and vision systems which arise due to contention on the high speed system data buses. A new parallel digital image processing system incorporating a generalized crossbar switch as a parallel interconnection unit will be examined. The feasibility of implementing the crossbar switch and internal interconnection bus optically using very high speed fiber optic data lines will be explored. Such a switch would supply contention-free communications at very high speed and potentially low cost among various component parts of the system. This novel image processing system will be useful in real time, online, and high throughput applications of image processing, e.g., in industrial automation using vision systems, real-time processing of medical images, remote sensing, and office automation. The optical crossbar interconnection system has additional applications in local area networks.
