Neuromorphic Excitable Maps for Visual Processing

An excitable membrane is described which can perform different visual tasks such as contour detection, contour propagation, image segmentation, and motion detection. The membrane is designed to fit into a neuromorphic multichip system. It consists of a single two-dimensional (2-D) layer of locally connected integrate-and-fire neurons and propagates input in the subthreshold and the above-threshold range. It requires adjustment of only one parameter to switch between the visual tasks. The performance of two spiking membranes of different connectivity is compared, a hexagonally and an octagonally connected membrane. Their hardware and system suitability is discussed