A random walk in Hamming space

A description is given of the scatter code, a new technique for mapping sensor data into a form suitable for processing by associative neural networks. By overthrowing the assumption that the sensor mapping must preserve order in addition to closeness, a mapping can be generated that has much more capacity and flexibility than previous mappings. The first advantage is the practically limitless number of points in the new mapping, which eliminates the need to compress sensor information and lose resolution. The second advantage is the ability to control the radius of association in the mapped sensor data by varying the rate at which points in the Hamming space become orthogonal. The radius of association can be varied within the mapping to take advantage of special cases when information about the sensor or about the expected data point is known