Direct Kernel Optimization: Efficient Design for Opto-Electronic Convolutional Neural Networks

Hybrid opto-electronic neural networks combine optical front-ends with electronic back-ends to perform vision tasks, but joint end-to-end (E2E) optimization of optical and electronic components is computationally expensive due to large parameter spaces and repeated optical convolutions. We propose Direct Kernel Optimization (DKO), a two-stage training framework that first trains a conventional electronic CNN and then synthesizes optical kernels to replicate the first-layer convolutional filters, reducing optimization dimensionality and avoiding hefty simulated optical convolutions during optimization. We evaluate DKO in simulation on a monocular depth estimation model and show that it achieves twice the accuracy of E2E training under equal computational budgets while reducing training time. Given the substantial computational challenges of optimizing hybrid opto-electronic systems, our results position DKO as a scalable optimization approach to train and realize these systems.