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RideTheLightning
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Prototype 'Brain-like' chip promises greener AI, says tech giant https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66465230
Frangipani
Regular
WANCAs of the World, wake up and open your eyes!
Western Sydney University’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) is offering 10 (!) research scholarships for highly motivated PhD candidates in all its areas of Neuromorphic Engineering Research:
The MARCS Institute
Lead Researcher: Andre van Schaik
For example project descriptions, please see: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/icns/research_projects/open_phd_projects.
Applicants are also allowed to propose their own projects, where they are aligned with ICNS research.
The International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems are world-leaders in academic research in this highly topical and active area of research and training the future workforce in this exponentially growing area of Electrical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence.
The Institute is committed to a culture that embraces equity and a diverse and inclusive community where everyone participates in a safe and respectful environment. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage applications from people of diverse gender, sexual orientation, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, people with disability and those with caring and family responsibilities.
The successful applicant should:
page.
For questions and advice about the research project, please contact Andre van Schaik: A.VanSchaik@westernsydney.edu.au
For questions and advice about the application process, please contact the Graduate Research School: grs.scholarships@westernsydney.edu.au.
If only one of the tech experts here on TSE could be a fly on the wall and find out whether the WSU researchers are experimenting with Akida in some of their numerous neuromorphic projects these days…
My gut feeling is, they are.
True, Brainchip is not listed as official partner on their website.
Besides a number of Australian and US government agencies, “ICNS collaborates closely with industry leaders like Intel, Thales, BAE, Raytheon, and Biological Monitoring Services (BMS), as well as with start-up companies such as Neurobuild and Nuvotech, to integrate neuromorphic engineering into practical applications.”
( Neurobuild? I only found a reference to a 2015 trademark by an Indian pharmaceutical company… Nuvotech? Possibly a typo here? I found a Sydney-based biotech contract research organization (CRO) called Novotech that could fit the bill: https://novotech-cro.com/faq/future...zation-real-world-evidence-and-ai-integration)
While this list is obviously not exhaustive (“industry leaders like…”), there is also the possibility that some ICNS researchers could be working with Akida indirectly, through Prophesee. While Prophesee is not specifically mentioned under industry partners above, their logo is on the WSU website under “Partners”. Gregory Cohen and his team at WSU have been using Prophesee technology since at least 2021 for their Astrosite project (in collaboration with the Australian Department of Defence), a mobile observatory built in a in a standard 20 foot shipping container to detect and track both working satellites and space junk in orbit around the Earth.
www.prophesee.ai
www.electrooptics.com
www.australiandefence.com.au
My speculation is the WSU’s ICNR researchers may also be using Prophesee technology for the AFRL’s upcoming ODIN (Optical Defense and Intelligence through Neuromorphics) project, Falcon Neuro’s follow-up experiment, and this is IMO where Akida could come in. Remember Peter van der Made’s LinkedIn comment after the successful launch of Falcon Neuro?
“Falcon Neuro has proven so successful that a follow-on experiment called Falcon ODIN (Optical Defense and Intelligence through Neuromorpics) is planned. Falcon ODIN will contain greatly improved optics provided by AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate and a new, more sensitive focal plane array.
Falcon ODIN is under construction in SPARC, and testing will start on the flight unit in the fall of 2023. Falcon ODIN will be delivered to the DoD Space Test Program in late 2023 and fly to the ISS to continue research in neuromorphic technology in 2025.”
afresearchlab.com
Just a reminder of Falcon Neuro’s initial goal from an article dated April 2, 2020 by Lincoln Parker:
“The initial goal of the project is to look for a class of high altitude phenomena or Transient Luminous Events, also known as upside-down lightening, or Sprites. This is lightening that instead of firing down to the ground, travels upwards to the upper atmosphere. Sprites are almost impossible to detect and could be very damaging to satellites, missiles, aircraft, communications or anything traveling via the upper atmosphere including SpaceX or other spacecraft.
Conventional camera technology was not designed to capture very bright, rare and fast moving events. But WSU’s neuromorphic cameras operate more like a photoreceptor in the eye than a conventional camera. All the pixels in these cameras work like single individual cameras that don’t interact or depend on one another.
To put it simply, they’re all looking for changes around whatever set point they see, and as a result there are no frames like a normal camera and you don’t have to worry about exposure times because the pixels just send you the changes when they are detected.
To capture an event that is moving incredibly fast (for example a Sprite or hypersonic missile) a conventional camera would need to capture many large pictures extremely regularly resulting in terabytes of data that then need analysing. A process that is both slow and power hungry.
But with Falcon Neuro, Sprites have nowhere to hide.
“With these cameras we’ll be able to get more insight into when they happen, how often they happen, where around the globe they happen and then if we do catch them, we should also be able to see how they form and what they’re actually doing,” A/Prof Cohen said.
In a crucial development for detecting hypersonic missiles, A/Prof Cohen was adamant.
“I think neuromorphic sensors for hypersonics are the perfect sensor,” he said. “So whether they’re on the ground looking up or somewhere in orbit looking down, it’s absolutely designed for it, and that’s even before you start going into the infrared spectrum.”
(…) In the future A/Prof Cohen sees no technical reason why Falcon Neuro 2.0 cannot also observe the Earth, through clouds to track ships, aircraft, missile launches and explosions, and possibly submarines.
“We can already see through bushes,” A/Prof Cohen said. “The moving surface of the sea, for example, is yet another surface that we may be able to use these algorithms to see through.”
Current resolution will not allow these capabilities, but given the amount of time it took Prof Cohen to field Falcon Neuro 1.0, he may achieve the above game-changing capabilities sooner than we think.”
www.australiandefence.com.au
I am a little surprised WSU’s ICNS doesn’t list iniVation as their partner, as they’ve modified various event-based DVS cameras for both the Astrosite mobile observatory (which uses a DVSxplore event-based camera alongside a Prophesee Gen 4 Metavision) and for the US Air Force’s Falcon Neuro project that uses two DVS 240C modified by INCS for use in space.
However, they list the University of Zurich as partner, which is where one of the two DVS event camera inventors and founder of iniLabs, Tobi Delbrück, co-leads the Institute for Neuroinformatics (INI)’s Sensors Group, a joint institute of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. Just like SynSense, IniVation is an iniLabs spin-off company.
A very interesting researcher in the Falcon Neuro project is Brian J. McReynolds, whose PhD supervisor at the INI Sensors Group is Tobi Delbrück.
He is a graduate of University of Virginia, that recently joined the Brainchip University AI Accelerator Program.
(At first I thought we had another match there with Oklahoma, but his alma mater is Oklahoma State University, whereas Brainchip has teamed up with another university, the University of Oklahoma).
Western Sydney University’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) is offering 10 (!) research scholarships for highly motivated PhD candidates in all its areas of Neuromorphic Engineering Research:
Neuromorphic Engineering Scholarship
PS2023_085_MARCSThe MARCS Institute
Lead Researcher: Andre van Schaik
About the project
The International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems is offering 10 research scholarships to highly motivated PhD candidates in all its areas of Neuromorphic Engineering Research. This includes the development of neuromorphic sensors, such as event-based vision sensors, algorithms for processing data from neuromorphic sensors and for machine learning, the design of analogue and/or digital hardware to implement neuromorphic algorithms, and the development of brain scale spiking neural network simulations.For example project descriptions, please see: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/icns/research_projects/open_phd_projects.
Applicants are also allowed to propose their own projects, where they are aligned with ICNS research.
The International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems are world-leaders in academic research in this highly topical and active area of research and training the future workforce in this exponentially growing area of Electrical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence.
The Institute is committed to a culture that embraces equity and a diverse and inclusive community where everyone participates in a safe and respectful environment. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage applications from people of diverse gender, sexual orientation, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, people with disability and those with caring and family responsibilities.
What does the scholarship provide?
- Domestic candidates will receive a tax-free stipend of $31,500(AUD) per annum for up to 3 years to support living costs, supported by the Research Training Program (RTP) Fee Offset.
- International candidates will receive a tax-free stipend of $31,500(AUD) per annum for up to 3 years to support living costs. Eligible candidates will receive a tuition fee waiver for 3 years and Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) insurance (Single Policy). International candidates are required to hold an Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) insurance policy for the duration of their study in Australia.
- Support for conference attendance, fieldwork and additional costs as approved by School/Institute.
Eligibility criteria
We welcome applicants from a range of backgrounds, who are keen to contribute to the growing field of neuromorphic engineering. Applicants with a background in Electrical (Electronics) Engineering, Computer Science, Computational Neuroscience, and Physics are likely most suited.The successful applicant should:
- hold qualifications and experience equal to one of the following (i) an Australian First Class Bachelor (Honours) degree, (ii) coursework Masters with at least 25% research component, (iii) Research Masters degree, or (iv) equivalent overseas qualifications.
- demonstrate strong academic performance in subjects relevant to neuromorphic engineering.
- have an interest in applications of their research to real world problems.
- be enthusiastic and highly motivated to undertake further study at an advanced level.
How to apply
Follow the step-by-step instructions on the how to apply for a project scholarship(opens in new window)
- Note: You do not need to complete 'Step 5: Submit an online application for admission' when applying for this scholarship. You must complete 'Step 6: Submit an online application for a project scholarship'.
For questions and advice about the research project, please contact Andre van Schaik: A.VanSchaik@westernsydney.edu.au
For questions and advice about the application process, please contact the Graduate Research School: grs.scholarships@westernsydney.edu.au.
Applications close 30 September 2023
*Applications close at 11.59pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST).Scholarship reference code: PS2023_085_MARCS
If only one of the tech experts here on TSE could be a fly on the wall and find out whether the WSU researchers are experimenting with Akida in some of their numerous neuromorphic projects these days…
My gut feeling is, they are.
True, Brainchip is not listed as official partner on their website.
Besides a number of Australian and US government agencies, “ICNS collaborates closely with industry leaders like Intel, Thales, BAE, Raytheon, and Biological Monitoring Services (BMS), as well as with start-up companies such as Neurobuild and Nuvotech, to integrate neuromorphic engineering into practical applications.”
(
Neurobuild? I only found a reference to a 2015 trademark by an Indian pharmaceutical company… Nuvotech? Possibly a typo here? I found a Sydney-based biotech contract research organization (CRO) called Novotech that could fit the bill: https://novotech-cro.com/faq/future...zation-real-world-evidence-and-ai-integration)While this list is obviously not exhaustive (“industry leaders like…”), there is also the possibility that some ICNS researchers could be working with Akida indirectly, through Prophesee. While Prophesee is not specifically mentioned under industry partners above, their logo is on the WSU website under “Partners”. Gregory Cohen and his team at WSU have been using Prophesee technology since at least 2021 for their Astrosite project (in collaboration with the Australian Department of Defence), a mobile observatory built in a in a standard 20 foot shipping container to detect and track both working satellites and space junk in orbit around the Earth.
Space Situational Awareness with event-based vision
There is a critical need for accurate detection and tracking of satellites. Greg Cohen and his team are harnessing neuromorphic technology and Event-Based Vision solutions to make this important job extremely efficient.
Illuminating the space junk problem | Electro Optics
Benjamin Skuse explores photonics-based efforts to track, and possibly even remove, debris from the very crowded region of near-Earth space
WSU and RAAF tech to deploy on International Space Station - Australian Defence Magazine
Western Sydney University (WSU) and RAAF’s Astrosite tech will be attached to the side of the International Space Station.
My speculation is the WSU’s ICNR researchers may also be using Prophesee technology for the AFRL’s upcoming ODIN (Optical Defense and Intelligence through Neuromorphics) project, Falcon Neuro’s follow-up experiment, and this is IMO where Akida could come in. Remember Peter van der Made’s LinkedIn comment after the successful launch of Falcon Neuro?
“Falcon Neuro has proven so successful that a follow-on experiment called Falcon ODIN (Optical Defense and Intelligence through Neuromorpics) is planned. Falcon ODIN will contain greatly improved optics provided by AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate and a new, more sensitive focal plane array.
Falcon ODIN is under construction in SPARC, and testing will start on the flight unit in the fall of 2023. Falcon ODIN will be delivered to the DoD Space Test Program in late 2023 and fly to the ISS to continue research in neuromorphic technology in 2025.”
FALCON NEURO – Air Force Research Laboratory
afresearchlab.com
Just a reminder of Falcon Neuro’s initial goal from an article dated April 2, 2020 by Lincoln Parker:
“The initial goal of the project is to look for a class of high altitude phenomena or Transient Luminous Events, also known as upside-down lightening, or Sprites. This is lightening that instead of firing down to the ground, travels upwards to the upper atmosphere. Sprites are almost impossible to detect and could be very damaging to satellites, missiles, aircraft, communications or anything traveling via the upper atmosphere including SpaceX or other spacecraft.
Conventional camera technology was not designed to capture very bright, rare and fast moving events. But WSU’s neuromorphic cameras operate more like a photoreceptor in the eye than a conventional camera. All the pixels in these cameras work like single individual cameras that don’t interact or depend on one another.
To put it simply, they’re all looking for changes around whatever set point they see, and as a result there are no frames like a normal camera and you don’t have to worry about exposure times because the pixels just send you the changes when they are detected.
To capture an event that is moving incredibly fast (for example a Sprite or hypersonic missile) a conventional camera would need to capture many large pictures extremely regularly resulting in terabytes of data that then need analysing. A process that is both slow and power hungry.
But with Falcon Neuro, Sprites have nowhere to hide.
“With these cameras we’ll be able to get more insight into when they happen, how often they happen, where around the globe they happen and then if we do catch them, we should also be able to see how they form and what they’re actually doing,” A/Prof Cohen said.
In a crucial development for detecting hypersonic missiles, A/Prof Cohen was adamant.
“I think neuromorphic sensors for hypersonics are the perfect sensor,” he said. “So whether they’re on the ground looking up or somewhere in orbit looking down, it’s absolutely designed for it, and that’s even before you start going into the infrared spectrum.”
(…) In the future A/Prof Cohen sees no technical reason why Falcon Neuro 2.0 cannot also observe the Earth, through clouds to track ships, aircraft, missile launches and explosions, and possibly submarines.
“We can already see through bushes,” A/Prof Cohen said. “The moving surface of the sea, for example, is yet another surface that we may be able to use these algorithms to see through.”
Current resolution will not allow these capabilities, but given the amount of time it took Prof Cohen to field Falcon Neuro 1.0, he may achieve the above game-changing capabilities sooner than we think.”
WSU and RAAF tech to deploy on International Space Station - Australian Defence Magazine
Western Sydney University (WSU) and RAAF’s Astrosite tech will be attached to the side of the International Space Station.
I am a little surprised WSU’s ICNS doesn’t list iniVation as their partner, as they’ve modified various event-based DVS cameras for both the Astrosite mobile observatory (which uses a DVSxplore event-based camera alongside a Prophesee Gen 4 Metavision) and for the US Air Force’s Falcon Neuro project that uses two DVS 240C modified by INCS for use in space.
However, they list the University of Zurich as partner, which is where one of the two DVS event camera inventors and founder of iniLabs, Tobi Delbrück, co-leads the Institute for Neuroinformatics (INI)’s Sensors Group, a joint institute of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. Just like SynSense, IniVation is an iniLabs spin-off company.
A very interesting researcher in the Falcon Neuro project is Brian J. McReynolds, whose PhD supervisor at the INI Sensors Group is Tobi Delbrück.
He is a graduate of University of Virginia, that recently joined the Brainchip University AI Accelerator Program.
(At first I thought we had another match there with Oklahoma, but his alma mater is Oklahoma State University, whereas Brainchip has teamed up with another university, the University of Oklahoma).
Attachments
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Fullmoonfever
Top 20
Frangipani
Regular
Just to give you an idea of the diversity of the open PhD projects WSU’s ICNS is currently offering, proving once again the multitude of neuromorphic engineering use cases to solve real-world problems is truly mind-boggling…
- Harness the potential of neuromorphic cameras to enhance maritime situational awareness (long-duration surveillance).
- High-precision airspace and space object tracking.
- Develop a neuromorphic auditory pathway that can extract and cluster acoustic features and capture higher-level cognitive executive functions for solving real-world problems. (> novel approaches to hearing aids!)
- Develop a low-power, long-lasting, and efficient system for automated acoustic ecological monitoring in remote areas. The system will accurately capture and analyze acoustic data, tagging specific ecological events to allow for focused, meaningful interpretation and avoid overwhelming the user with useless data.
- Develop an automated auditory scene analysis system to assess bushfire risk, by learning from the acoustic signatures of ecosystems and expert assessments. This aims to facilitate continuous remote monitoring, thereby enabling faster responses and effective bushfire prevention.
- Honey bee waggle dance detection via neuromorphic engineering.
- Development of an efficient, real-time, acoustic-based drone detection system, capable of operation in visually obscured environments such as those engulfed in smoke or fire.
- Create an efficient and automated system capable of detecting underwater acoustic drones, modeled after the superior auditory capabilities of marine mammals.
ICNS | Open PhD Projects
Frangipani
Regular
Great sleuthing at 4.46am Frangipani! Sleuthing award is yrs todayNow you also earnt the right to sleep, although I'm pretty sure sleuthers don't sleep.
My apparent vigil was simply due to the fact that I live in a different time zone from you…
So it was actually way before my usual bedtime when I hit the send button.
Saying that, I have indeed posted at ungodly hours before, after getting myself into a state of sleuthing flow and totally losing track of time. Luckily, I get by on very little sleep…
I hope that I still get to keep the award, though?
How Blockchain and AI Integration Redefining the Business Landscape?
Integrating Artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology is disrupting how businesses work and redefining the business landscape as we know it. Although blockchain delivers a decentralized and transparent framework for secure data sharing and transactions, AI carries automation capabilitie
GStocks123
Regular
Neurobotx: Join MetaPilot and Enter the Cognitive Metaverse
Experience the future of gaming and aviation with NeuroBotX. Join MetaPilot, the world's first cognitive metaverse powered by neuromorphic computing. Apply now for the Metapilot program and win exciting prizes!
www.neurobotx.ai
I do recall the CEO of Neurobotx commenting out of interest on one of Brainchips posts.
Could also be Synsense…
Attachments
"Brainchip, a global technology company with a significant presence in Europe"
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Private message me Hoppa.Anybody know if possible for us unwashed dregs of humanity types (aka unsophisticated investors) are able to get a direct stake in the ARM IPO?
Or will it all be controlled and manipulated to within an inch of its life and have all the cream syphoned off to go to the Broker boys?
Asking for a friend.
MDhere
Regular
how on earth do we get a slice of that without paying $$$ for the share at ipo??? WAIT i know... buy more BRN before we go to $$$ as we are in with Arm
IMO .... all the past dot joining by the 1000 eyes till now is old news based solely on the Akida 1.0 and part Akida 1500 usage/development and engagements .....................
I think that upon the release of this 3 levelled 2nd Generation Akida 2.0 (E), 2.0 (S) and 2.0 (P) within the next few weeks will be the time that true commercialisation and IP engagements should come well into play.
equanimous
Norse clairvoyant shapeshifter goddess
Attachments below are great examples of having Akida in Universities. Not only will graduates be familiar with Akida, they will also solve real life problems with it. The likely hood of a unicorn product with Akida increases also.
www.buzzfeed.com
11 Inventions By College Students That Are Super Impressive
Will your big idea be the next best thing?
jtardif999
Regular
Great yes but this should be looked from inside to out imo; if it’s Prophesee’s sensor that Akida would be integrated into then Prophesee would be the one taking out an Akida licence; if Akida tech and the Prophesee sensor remain separate then Sony would probably be taking the licence and as it looks like they would probably go thru Megachips in that case. I can’t see Qualcomm being a part of this - they would only care about the resultant SoC in either case.
cosors
👀
I am a little cautious about this article. A lot of text and not much of specific substance. I wouldn't be surprised if it was generated by Ai. Otherwise the names of the authors are also there, but not here. It gives me the impression of offering what someone wants to read. Universally valid statements that are maybe correct for themselves are juxtaposed to show a possible connection.
...BrainChip, a global technology company with a significant presence in Europe...
I can't find any connection to the HBP yet. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction?
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Hi 99+9,
The relationship between Prophesee and Brainchip was announced as a partnership, the terms of which conform to a joint venture, in which case the partners take joint ownership of the product and share the profits according to their contibutions, so income derives from the profit from sales, not from a licence.
MDhere
Regular
Come to Australia at the next Agm and i will have the award ready for uMy apparent vigil was simply due to the fact that I live in a different time zone from you…
So it was actually way before my usual bedtime when I hit the send button.
Saying that, I have indeed posted at ungodly hours before, after getting myself into a state of sleuthing flow and totally losing track of time. Luckily, I get by on very little sleep…
I hope that I still get to keep the award, though?
i will mark it in my diarySimilar threads
