This INSPIRE award is partially funded by the NeTS program in the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, and the Directorate for Engineering.
This project will design and build "The Optical Turing Machine" (OTM) a digital device that computes using a optical data modulation format compatible with long-distance, high-speed transmission to support terabit-per-second. It integrates computation and communication by computing with the same symbols used for transmission, which enables native optical processing of network data while avoiding costly optical-electronic-optical conversion or modulation format conversion (e.g., serial to parallel). Specific to the NSF INSPIRE program, OTM explores in-network high-speed processing that necessitates concurrent cross-disciplinary development across networking, computation, and optical devices. It involves new perspectives on modulation to support computation, the transformation of algorithms into serial architectures and system design based on the needs of networking within the constraints of optical capabilities that cannot be developed from any single vantage point or focus.
OTM motivates research in serial computation, algorithms in higher-order logic, homomorphic transforms, new methods for big data analysis, and new active optical devices. OTM benefits society by enabling faster communication and computation at potentially lower power and complexity, supporting enhanced in-network capabilities for privacy, error correction, and packet services at rates far in excess of those capable by current electronic processing. If successful, it also provides an opportunity to reexamine the fundamental assumptions of several decades of attempts at optical computing. Cross-publication across both CS and EE will enhance this effect.
