A system for high-speed pattern recognition and image analysis

A mixed analog/digital chip (ANNA) for fast 2-d convolution and matrix-vector multiplication has been developed (peak speed 20,000 MOPS). Two of these chips have been integrated on a 6U VME board, to serve as a high-speed platform for a wide variety of algorithms used in neural-network applications as well as in image analysis. The system has been tested for such tasks as character recognition, noise removal, and text location as well as for emulating cellular neural networks (CNN). A sustained speed of up to 2 billion connections per second (GC/s) and a recognition speed of 1000 characters per second with a sophisticated neural network has been measured.