Representation and Learning of Invariance

A robust, fast and general method for estimation of object properties is proposed. It is based on a representation of theses properties in terms of channels. Each channel represents a particular value of a property, resembling the activity of biological neurons. Furthermore, each processing unit, corresponding to an artificial neuron, is a linear perceptron which operates on outer products of input data. This implies a more complex space of invariances than in the case of first order characteristic without abandoning linear theory. In general, the specific function of each processing unit has to to be learned and a fast and simple learning rule is presented. The channel representation, the processing structure and the learning rule has been tested on stereo image data showing a cube with various 3D positions and orientations. The system was able to learn a channel representation for the horizontal position, the depth, and the orientation of the cube, each property invariant to the other two