Scientists Just Taught Light to Transmit Meaning
By leveraging multimode fiber (MMF), this approach encodes information in frequencies rather than raw data, achieving a seven-fold boost in capacity over traditional methods. Not only does this technology enhance data transmission, but it also proves remarkably effective in sentiment analysis, allowing accurate interpretation even in noisy environments, the journal Light: Science & Applications reported.
The growing demand for faster and more efficient communication is pushing conventional systems to their limits. A promising solution is semantic communication, a technology that prioritizes transmitting meaningful information rather than raw data, making communication more efficient and resourceful.
In a recent study published in Light: Science & Applications, a team of researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, led by Professor Ming Tang and Dr. Hao Wu, along with doctoral students Zheng Gao and Ting Jiang, introduced an innovative optical semantic communication system. Their approach uses multimode fiber (MMF) to significantly boost data transmission capacity and reliability.
Describing their breakthrough, the scientists explain:
“We achieved high-dimensional semantic encoding and decoding in the frequency domain through leveraging intermodal dispersion in MMFs. By mapping symbols to distinct frequencies, we demonstrated a seven-fold increase in transmission capacity compared to conventional communication encoding methods. The system also integrates PAM-4 to enhance spectral efficiency, achieving 9.12 bits/s/Hz without decoding errors.”
“Beyond improving transmission capacity, we explored the application in sentiment analysis using the IMDb movie review dataset. By encoding semantically similar symbols to adjacent frequencies, the system’s noise tolerance was effectively improved, facilitating accurate sentiment analysis even under high symbol error rate conditions. This approach highlights the potential of MMF-based semantic communication to enhance both capacity and robustness in optical communication systems, offering promising applications in bandwidth-constrained and noisy environments,” they added.
“The innovative method of using MMFs for semantic communication presents a significant advancement in the field of optical communications. The capability to directly transmit semantic information via optical frequencies, along with the system’s high capacity and robustness, makes it a promising solution for future communication technologies,” the scientists forecast.
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