Neuromorphic Engineering in the Commercial World

Nips 2002 Workshop

December 12/13
Whistler, Canada

Timothy Horiuchi, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
Giacomo Indiveri, Insititue of Neuroinformatics, UNI-ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Ralph Etienne-Cummings, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

We propose a one-day workshop to discuss strategies, opportunities and success stories in the commercialization of neuromorphic systems. Towards this end, we will be inviting speakers from industry and universities with relevant experience in the field. The discussion will cover a broad range of topics, from visual and auditory processing to olfaction and locomotion, focusing specifically on the key elements and ideas for successfully transitioning from neuroscience to commercialization.

Neuromorphic engineering is loosely defined to be the efforts to bring ideas from neuroscience to the design of engineered systems. Examples include: artificial noses for harmful gas detection, food spoilage, or bomb sniffing, artificial retinas and cochleas for the recovery of lost sight or hearing, artificial vision systems for security applications or navigation, legged or snake-like locomotion control for hazardous duty or highly-constrained terrain navigation, artificial neural networks for high-dimensional pattern analysis and learning.

Questions we will raise: "What is the difference between the evolutionary pressure of natural environments and the commercial world?", "What are the applications domains that are best suited for the type of technology used by neuromorphic systems?", "What is the most effective way of doing technology transfer for neuromorphic engineering?"

Preliminary list of topics

Preliminary Schedule

Friday morning session: 7:30am--10:30am

7:30am Opening Remarks R. Etienne-Cummings
7:45am The olfactory system as a blueprint for complex odour/chemical discrimation T. Pearce (University of Leicester)
8:15am Applications of Bio-inspired Electronics to Bionics and Ultra Low Power Electronics Rahul Sarpeshkar (MIT)
8:45am break
9:00am Lessons Learned from the Development of a Commercialized Neuromorphic Motion Chip: The Track-Ball Mouse Andre Van Schaik (University of Sydney)
9:30am Producing your own neuromorphic chip product for less than 10K dollars Tobi Delbruck (University of Zurich - ETH Zurich)
10:00am Discussion

Friday afternoon session: 4:00pm--7:00pm

4:00pm Commercialization Challenges of the ColorCam Technology M. Anthony Lewis (Iguana Robotics, Inc.)
4:30pm Applying Neuromorphic Imagers to Military and Commercial Uses Mark Massie (Novabiomimetics, Inc.)
5:00pm break
5:30pm Commercializing toys made with neuromorphic devices Mark Tilden (Hasbro, Inc.)
6:00pm Discussion
6:30pm Closing remarks T. Horiuchi and G. Indiveri