Interfacing PDM sensors with PFM spiking systems: application for Neuromorphic Auditory Sensors

In this paper we present a sub-system to convert audio information from low-power MEMS microphones with pulse density modulation (PDM) output into rate coded spike streams. These spikes represent the input signal of a Neuromorphic Auditory Sensor (NAS), which is implemented with Spike Signal Processing (SSP) building blocks. For this conversion, we have designed a HDL component for FPGA able to interface with PDM microphones and converts their pulses to temporal distributed spikes following a pulse frequency modulation (PFM) scheme with an accurate configurable Inter-Spike-Interval. The new FPGA component has been tested in two scenarios, first as a stand-alone circuit for its characterization, and then it has been integrated with a full NAS design to verify its behavior. This PDM interface demands less than 1% of a Spartan 6 FPGA resources and has a power consumption below 5mW.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2016-77785-

A general framework for efficient FPGA implementation of matrix product

Original article can be found at: http://www.medjcn.com/ Copyright Softmotor LimitedHigh performance systems are required by the developers for fast processing of computationally intensive applications. Reconfigurable hardware devices in the form of Filed-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have been proposed as viable system building blocks in the construction of high performance systems at an economical price. Given the importance and the use of matrix algorithms in scientific computing applications, they seem ideal candidates to harness and exploit the advantages offered by FPGAs. In this paper, a system for matrix algorithm cores generation is described. The system provides a catalog of efficient user-customizable cores, designed for FPGA implementation, ranging in three different matrix algorithm categories: (i) matrix operations, (ii) matrix transforms and (iii) matrix decomposition. The generated core can be either a general purpose or a specific application core. The methodology used in the design and implementation of two specific image processing application cores is presented. The first core is a fully pipelined matrix multiplier for colour space conversion based on distributed arithmetic principles while the second one is a parallel floating-point matrix multiplier designed for 3D affine transformations.Peer reviewe

Modular composition and verification of transaction processing protocols using category theory

Establishing the correctness of reliable distributed protocols supporting dependable applications necessitates modular/compositional approaches to tackle the inherent complexity of these protocols. Efforts involved in the specification and verification of these reliable distributed protocols can be considerably reduced if the protocol is composed utilizing smaller components (building-blocks) possessing individual functionalities that are integral parts of the overall protocol operation. In this thesis, we introduce techniques utilizing the concepts of category theory for the modular composition of dependable distributed protocols. In particular, we show how by defining external interfaces of basic modules, and morphisms linking two different modules, a larger or more complex protocol can be formally composed and verified. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology for compositional specification and verification, in this thesis, we present a modular composition and verification of a transaction processing protocol namely the non-blocking atomic three phase commit (3PC) protocol using category theoretic concepts. Specifically, we illustrate how the overall global properties of the protocol can be proved by utilizing constructs of local sub-properties of the inherent building blocks of the 3PC protocol. A key benefit of this modular approach is that these identified building blocks would be helpful to system designers for their capability of specifying and facilitating rigorously tested and pretested formal theory modules of required system and component behavior; and also supporting system design decisions and modifications

CSK Realization for MC via Spatially Distributed Multicellular Consortia

The design and engineering of molecular communication (MC) components capable of processing chemical concentration signals is the key to unleashing the potential of MC for interdisciplinary applications. By controlling the signaling pathway and molecule exchange between cell devices, synthetic biology provides the MC community with tools and techniques to achieve various signal processing functions. In this paper, we propose a design framework to realize any order concentration shift keying (CSK) systems based on simple and reusable single-input single-output cells. The design framework also exploits the distributed multicellular consortia with spatial segregation, which has advantages in system scalability, low genetic manipulation, and signal orthogonality. We also create a small library of reusable engineered cells and apply them to implement binary CSK (BCSK) and quadruple CSK (QCSK) systems to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed design framework. Importantly, we establish a mathematical framework to theoretically characterize our proposed distributed multicellular systems. Specially, we divide a system into fundamental building blocks, from which we derive the impulse response of each block and the cascade of the impulse responses leads to the end-to-end response of the system. Simulation results obtained from the agent-based simulator BSim not only validate our CSK design framework but also demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed mathematical analysis.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figure

Software Reconfigurability for Heterogeneous Robot Cooperation

Previous work in multi-robot cooperation has aimed at gaining autonomy and fault tolerance in the robot team. Most attempt to accomplish this by dynamically assigning roles or tasks to the robots and pre-designing the solution for heterogeneous robot teams with known sensing capabilities. However, pre-designed solutions fail when changes occur in the robot team composition or in the available environmental sensors at run-time. Automated solution design is thus needed to accomplish autonomy and fault tolerance in multi-agent systems. Very little work has been done in automating robot solutions at run-time due to the difficulty of adapting to many unexpected events such as sensor failures and changes in the environment. Therefore, the software reconfigurability approach is introduced. This approach takes into account all available sensors and capabilities on the robot team rather than on individual robots. It views those sensors and capabilities as building blocks and configures a solution by choosing from different ways of combining these blocks. Since the implementation of this approach cannot be completed in a short time, this thesis concentrates on 1) modularizing the robot behaviors to create these building blocks and 2) illustrating different ways to solve a task based on the same blocks. Our approach is based on creating distributed “schema” building blocks across multiple robots and providing a mechanism for the schemas to be reconnected in multiple ways to achieve different solution strategies. We illustrate the fundamental capabilities of this approach through a simple multi-robot application involving robots moving to assigned goal positions. We show how different schema configurations can achieve this task in multiple ways by using different combinations of robot behaviors. This accomplishment enables the development of a fault tolerant and autonomous robot system by providing different solutions to solving a task based on the available sensors and capabilities in the robot team, as well as constructs that allow the team solution to be automated at run-time