A compact analogue computer based on an acoustic metamaterial has been proposed by Farzad Zangeneh-Nejad and Romain Fleury at the Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. They have shown that the system should be capable of rapid differentiation, integration, and instantaneous image processing, and the duo believe it could achieve yet more impressive feats in the future.
Analogue computers use interactions involving physical entities such as light, electrical current or a mechanical system to perform specific calculations. Some of the most sophisticated analogue computers were developed in the early to mid-20th century to help guide artillery and aerial bombing strikes.
While the advent of digital computers made these computers obsolete, they are now enjoying a resurgence thanks to ongoing research into artificial materials called metamaterials. These materials can be engineered to manipulate the light or sound waves passing through them in new ways – opening the door to new types of analogue computer.
Subtle engineering
“Metamaterials are artificial structures composed of periodic subwavelength inclusions, which can be subtly engineered to provide the desired macroscopic characteristics of the overall material,” explains Zangeneh-Nejad.
Metamaterials have already been used to create analogue computers that manipulate electromagnetic waves to perform mathematical operations. Zangeneh-Nejad and Fleury set out to design a device comparable to these optical computers, but using sound waves. However, the distinctive properties of sound waves meant that the researchers first needed to carefully consider how to design their metamaterial.
“Usually, when sound is incident on a hard wall, it reflects without being subject to any particular transformation, and the only thing that happens is the direction of propagation changes,” says Fleury. “Our metamaterial is capable of performing complex signal processing tasks on sound waves when they are reflected, directly on the fly and without delay. It can achieve this instantaneously without converting [sound] into electrical signals.” Through their calculations, the physicists uncovered the physical properties required of their metamaterial. “It requires a very special acoustic property that does not exist in nature: an acoustic refractive index larger than that of air,” explains Fleury.
No transform required
An important feature of the proposed device is that it performs operations directly in the spatial domain. Previous metamaterial-based computers have worked in the frequency, or Fourier domain, requiring bulky Fourier transform sub-blocks to convert signals into the spatial domain. The new metamaterial has no need for these additional elements. “In our computing system, the mathematical operator of choice is directly performed in the spatial domain using a metamaterial known as a high-index acoustic slab waveguide,” Zangeneh-Nejad explains.
The duo have shown how their device could perform differentiation and integration, as well as instantaneous image detection. Writing in a preprint on arXiv, they explain how future generations of their design could be used to solve more complex differential equations, such as the Schrödinger equation. “We showed how more complex operators such as second order differentiator can be constructed simply by cascading more and more slab waveguides,” says Zangeneh-Nejad. Importantly, the researchers have worked-out that computing devices made from acoustic metamaterials could be entirely compatible with current computing infrastructure. “Our system is free of any Fourier bulk lens, highly miniaturized and potentially integratable in compact architectures, and can be implemented easily in practice.”
Microwaves in metamaterial perform quantum search
The physicists will now further explore the capability of their waveguide to perform calculations at faster rates than conventional computers. “We are investigating applications of our metamaterial in compressive sensing, ultrafast equation solving, neural networks, and a large variety of other applications necessitating real-time and continuous signal processing,” Fleury explains. Their device also has the potential for exploring the dynamics of complex biological systems, allowing for new advances in medicine. As Zangeneh-Nejad adds, “our system could explore the computation processes in human brains, and many other natural systems like DNA, membranes and protein-protein interactions”.
