Neurodrones: Neuromorphic Chip tested in prototype nanodrone
MIT Technology Review reports, that researchers from HRL Laboratories’ Center for Neural and Emergent Systems (on behalf of DARPA’s SyNAPSE program) have tested a tiny drone (93 grams incl battery) with a prototype neuromorphic chip (576 silicon neurons).
The first time the drone was flown into each room, the unique pattern of incoming sensor data from the walls, furniture, and other objects caused a pattern of electrical activity in the neurons that the chip had never experienced before. That triggered it to report that it was in a new space, and also caused the ways its neurons connected to one another to change, in a crude mimic of learning in a real brain. Those changes meant that next time the craft entered the same room, it recognized it and signaled as such.
The drone was built by Aerovironment.
[read more] [Drone designed by Patrick McDonnell, Brain designed by Maximilian Becker from the Noun Project, CC 3.0]