Method and apparatus for a focal neuron system

摘要

A focal neuron system includes an image input layer comprising a plurality of input neurons, an input layer comprising a plurality of output neurons and a plurality of focal neurons located between the image input layer and the input layer. The input layer is an input to a conventional artificial neural network (ANN), and a subject image is input to the image input layer for recognition in the ANN. For each dimension of the image array, a maximum and minimum boundary are determined. Based on the maximum and minimum boundaries, a focal neuron is selected such that the focal neuron provides appropriate scaling and translation of the subject image from the image layer to the input layer for each dimension. Each activated neuron on the image input layer is projected through the selected focal neuron for each dimension. The selected focal neuron projects the subject image, with the appropriate scaling and translation, onto the input layer. The subject image is processed in the conventional ANN for pattern recognition. By scaling and translating the images, the focal neuron system allows a conventional ANN to operate on a much larger input space without a significant increase in the number of required neurons.