Signal processing with neural networks: throwing off the yoke of linearity

Robert Hecht-Nielsen

doi:10.1117/12.49329

1 November 1991 Signal processing with neural networks: throwing off the yoke of linearity

Robert Hecht-Nielsen

Proceedings Volume 1541, Infrared Sensors: Detectors, Electronics, and Signal Processing; (1991) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.49329
Event: San Diego, '91, 1991, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

During the 1930s and 1940s Norbert Wiener and others invented the core concepts of linear signal processing. These ideas quickly became popular and played a significant role in the Allies' victory in World War II. During and after the war, linear signal processing theory was greatly expanded and began to take on the character of an imposing monolith. By the mid- 1940s, Wiener (and others, such as Dennis Gabor) came to recognize that linear signal processing theory, while interesting and very useful, was only a piece of a much larger picture. In 1946 and 1958 Gabor and Wiener, respectively, attempted to address the whole picture. While they were not completely successful, they did implicitly set an agenda for a more general approach to signal processing. Although a few others have, from time to time, addressed this agenda; in terms of the signal processing community as a whole it still remains lost in the shadow of the ever-growing monolith of linear signal processing theory. The thesis of this paper is that it is now time to get on with the Wiener and Gabor agenda. It is time to make general signal processing the mainstream focus of the subject. It is argued here that the best way to do this is to abandon the transfer function/Fourier analysis/z-transform approach of the current linear signal processing regime and replace it with a much more natural intellectual framework for general signal processing--the framework offered by neurocomputing. A potential benefit of this refocusing of the field is that the detailed engineering might soon be left to machines, while human technologists will be able to concentrate on the art of signal sculpting.

Citation Download Citation

Robert Hecht-Nielsen "Signal processing with neural networks: throwing off the yoke of linearity", Proc. SPIE 1541, Infrared Sensors: Detectors, Electronics, and Signal Processing, (1 November 1991); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.49329

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