Cognition Optics Summit held in Xi'an

The Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences hosted the Cognition Optics Summit on Sept 28, bringing together top scholars and industry experts nationwide.

The summit's opening ceremony. [Photo/Xi'an news network]

At the opening ceremony, Shao Xiaopeng, deputy director of the institute, said that efficiently acquiring visual information forms an essential foundation for developing all physical intelligent agents. Against this backdrop, the cross-integration of new-generation artificial intelligence and novel optical imaging technologies has led to the emergence of cognitive optics, a specialized optical imaging technology designed for specific task requirements.

Rather than aiming to capture complete, high-fidelity images, cognitive optics adopts a collaborative design of optical frontends, detectors, cognitive algorithms, and task demands, directly extracting task-relevant features or decision-making information from the measurement domain to deliver efficient information processing.

This paradigm shift is poised to transform the information pipeline of conventional imaging systems, allowing visual perception systems to strike a new balance among information dimensionality, computational complexity, and physical implementation.

During the conference, experts held in-depth discussions on the meaning, theoretical basis, and application boundaries of cognitive optics, and reached consensus on its concept, development roadmap, and application cases.

Experts conduct in-depth discussions during the summit. [Photo/Xi'an news network]

The summit laid a solid foundation for advancing cognitive optics and injected strong impetus into independent innovation in China's optoelectronic integration and intelligent perception.