Photonic reservoir computing based on micro-ring resonators for direction finding of unmanned aerial vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) face challenges in real-time high-precision tasks such as data acquisition and environmental monitoring, which demand low-latency decision-making and high-speed data transmission.A photonic reservoir computing (PRC) system based on silicon-integrated micro-ring resonators (MRRs) was demonstrated for UAV flight direction recognition, achieving an accuracy of 95.6%.The proposed PRC exhibits short-term memory effects, enabling the detection of subtle changes in flight direction.The PRC operates at the MHz-rate with milliwatt-level power consumption, enabling photonic edge computing with high speed and energy efficiency, providing UAVs the potential to make decisions autonomously and avoid external interference when operating in extreme environments.