The animal kingdom is full of mysterious sensory powers. The echolocation for example is a mechanism that bats, dolphins and certain other animals use to triangulate the position of an object with biological sonar. Barn owls have something similar. Being reliant on non-visual senses while hunting in the dark, they use sound localization to locate their preys from sound cues.
Drawing from this characteristic of barn owls, CEA-Leti, Grenoble and several European universities have collaboratively developed an object localization system that has similar sensory processing capabilities.
Jim Handy, a well-known semiconductor analyst and a Field Day delegate recently published an article on The Memory Guy that shines light on this neural processing system. In the article titled “ReRAMs find a Neuromorphic Role in Owl-Inspired Object Location”, author and contributor, Ron Neale follows the journey of building this object location system as he pulls apart the computing technology behind it. He writes,
In a paper recently published in Nature , inspired by the auditory system of the barn owl, a team from: CEA-Leti, Grenoble, and Universities in France, Italy, and Switzerland have used HfO-based ReRAMs to build a position location system.
For a deep dive into this neuromorphic object location technology, read his blog – “ReRAMs find a Neuromorphic Role in Owl-Inspired Object Location”. To stay up-to-date with all things technology, sign up for our weekly newsletter for free.
