Object recognition system employing a sparse comparison neural network

An object recognition system for recognizing a known object in an image, comprising:

• (a) means for generating a first known tensor representation of an image of at least one known object, the known object being represented by a first known tensor and for generating a first unknown tensor representation of an image of at least one candidate, unknown object, the unknown object being represented by a first unknown tensor;
• (b) a comparison neural network comprising a plurality of parallel processing networks, each parallel processing network including:
• (i) a first layer including a first input node for receiving the first known tensor and a second input node for receiving the first unknown tensor,
• (ii) a second layer for receiving the first known and unknown tensors, the second layer having at least one first trainable weight tensor associated with the first known tensor and at least one second trainable weight tensor associated with the first unknown tensor, the second layer including first processing means for transforming the first known tensor on the first trainable weight tensor to produce a first known output, the first known output comprising a first known output tensor of at least rank zero having a third trainable weight tensor associated therewith, the second layer further including second processing means for transforming the first unknown tensor on the second trainable weight tensor to produce a first unknown output, the first unknown output comprising a first unknown output tensor of at least rank zero having a fourth trainable weight tensor associated therewith, the first known output tensor and the first unknown output tensor being combined to form a second input tensor having a fifth trainable weight tensor associated therewith,
• (iii) a third layer for receiving the second input tensor, the third layer including third processing means for transforming the second input tensor on the fifth trainable weight tensor, thereby comparing the first known output with the first unknown output and producing a resultant output, wherein the resultant output is indicative of the degree of similarity between the first known tensor and the first unknown tensor;
• (c) a selection criterion module for receiving and comparing the resultant output of each parallel processing network, the selection criterion module producing an outcome based on a predetermined selection criterion, wherein the outcome is indicative of the closest degree of similarity between the known object and the candidate, unknown object;
• and
• (d) a designating layer for designating the candidate object having the closest degree of similarity to the known object.