AI Meets Quantum and Feels Surfaces for the First Time
By Carolyn Mathas
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can now “feel” surfaces for the first time. A research team at New Jersey’s Stevens Institute of Technology used 31 variations of industrial sandpaper with roughness ranging from 1 to 100 micrometers in thickness—approximately the width of a human hair. By combining a LiDAR system with a laser beam fired in picosecond pulses (1 trillion picoseconds equals 1 second) and a new AI model, the scientists trained the system to distinguish between different surfaces imaged with the lasers. Their findings are published in the journal Applied Optics.
The system blasted a series of short light pulses at a surface to “feel” it. The scattered photons, or particles of light, returned carrying speckle noise, which manifested in imagery. By processing these noise artifacts, the AI discerned the surface’s topography.
Pulses of light passed through transceivers, struck the sandpaper, and rebounded through the system for AI analysis. The back-scattered photons, originating from different points on the surface, were detected and counted using a single-photon detector.
Initial tests achieved an average error of approximately 8 micrometers, which improved to just 4 micrometers after the AI analyzed multiple samples. This level of accuracy matches that of current profilometer devices.
The researchers suggest this method could have diverse applications, including in medical contexts to detect the thickness of moles that may indicate early-stage skin cancer.
“Tiny differences in mole roughness, too small to see with the human eye but measurable with our proposed quantum system, could differentiate between those conditions,” said Yuping Huang, director of Stevens’ Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (CQSE). “Quantum interactions provide a wealth of information, and using AI to quickly understand and process it is the next logical step.”
Original Story:Invisible Touch: Stevens Is Giving AI the Ability to Feel and Measure Surfaces | Stevens Institute of Technology
