Task-specific compressive optical system design through genetic algorithms

Alternative architectures for imaging devices which fuse the optical design with an algorithmic component enable inexpensive sensing systems optimized for specific classification tasks. Leveraging past work in task-specific compressive devices, this work seeks to improve upon previous designs of optical and algorithmic elements. We achieve this through use of genetic algorithms to enforce conditions upon the optimization phase of a computational imaging system. Through enforcement of binary sampling or discrete-valued outputs of a system measurement matrix, it is possible to simplify optical hardware design while achieving high task-specific performance.