NCS-FO: Foundations of Biologically Informed Intelligent Machines for Spatial Navigation

虽然哺乳动物进化出了动物王国中最大的大脑，但果蝇尽管大脑很小，却表现出非常复杂的能力。它们可以在大多数风力条件下导航和飞行，并在记住它们的位置的同时直接朝向或回避刺激，以及在任何角度的方向上休息或行走，即使在黑暗中。因此，导航敏捷的果蝇的较小大脑为研究时空导航的基本原理提供了一个很好的路线图。最近的研究表明，一个被称为中央复合体（CX）的大脑区域产生了果蝇的内部罗盘和空间记忆。CX还展示了“硬件”的简单性，效率和强大的操作，与传感信息的可扩展集成相匹配。CX电路架构是构建用于空间导航的生物信息智能机器的主要候选者。该项目的首要目标是创建硅硬件，可以将CX的空间导航电路的本质纳入神经形态硬件。通过交织计算神经科学和计算机工程两个研究方向，该项目具有开发满足自动驾驶汽车最苛刻要求的空间导航智能机器原型的强大潜力。该项目的目标有三个方面：（1）提取CX中导航电路的基础，（2）扩展其计算原理，以及（3）在硅中提供所得到的功能的实现。实现这些目标需要（i）开发一个全面的，生物信息的电路架构，以视觉为基础的空间导航，（ii）调查电路机制，编码和存储时空信息，（iii）研究不同类型的视觉信息流在塑造的CX决策电路中发挥的作用。根据这一生物架构，研究人员将开发一个硅CX原型，这将大大提高可编程性，尺寸，功率和准确性超过传统的neuromorphic architecture.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得的支持，通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

While mammals evolved some of the largest brains in the animal kingdom, fruit flies, despite their miniature brains, exhibit remarkably sophisticated capabilities. They can navigate and fly in most wind conditions, and maneuver directly towards or evasively away from stimuli while remembering their location, as well as rest or walk in any angular orientation even in the dark. The smaller brain of the navigationally agile fruit fly thus presents a good road map for studying the fundamental principles of spatio-temporal navigation. Recent studies have shown that a brain area called the central complex (CX) gives rise to the internal compass and spatial memory of the fruit fly. The CX also exhibits ``hardware'' simplicity, efficiency and robust operation matched by scalable integration of sensory information. The CX circuit architecture is a prime candidate for building biologically informed intelligent machines for spatial navigation. The overriding goal of this project is to create silicon hardware that can incorporate the essence of the spatial-navigation circuits of the CX into neuromorphic hardware. By interweaving the two research directions of computational neuroscience and computer engineering, the project has a strong potential to develop an intelligent machine prototype for spatial navigation meeting the most demanding requirements of autonomous vehicles.The goals of this project are three-fold: (1) distill the foundations underlying the navigation circuits in the CX, (2) expand upon its principles of computation and (3) provide an implementation of the resulting functionality in silicon. Achieving these goals calls for (i) developing a comprehensive, biologically informed circuit architecture for vision-based spatial navigation, (ii) investigating the circuit mechanisms that encode and store spatio-temporal information, and (iii) studying the roles that different types of visual information flows play in shaping the decision making circuits of the CX. Informed by this bio-architecture, the investigators will develop a silicon CX prototype that will substantially enhance programmability, size, power, and accuracy over conventional neuromorphic architectures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.