From Cognitive Architectures to Hardware: A Low Cost FPGA-Based Design Experience

This paper describes an experiment to implement a high-level, cognitive architecture on limited resources, namely, an altera cyclone/cyclone-II FPGA. It is part of a broader line of research investigating methods of scaling high-level, cognitive or "intelligent" architectures into limited resources, for building embedded systems. An artificial vision system for traffic signal detection has been implemented with neural networks, according to the principles of a BB1/AIS blackboard architecture. Different scaling techniques and reductions have been carried out for embedding the system into an FPGA. The paper offers a description of the architectural design and hardware implementation results. A discussion of modularity, possible enhancements and tradeoffs is carried out throughout the paper.