Catherine D. Schuman

Shruti R. Kulkarni, Aaron Young, Prasanna Date et al.

This work describes the investigation of neuromorphic computing-based spiking neural network (SNN) models used to filter data from sensor electronics in high energy physics experiments conducted at the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider. We present our approach for developing a compact neuromorphic model that filters out the sensor data based on the particle's transverse momentum with the goal of reducing the amount of data being sent to the downstream electronics. The incoming charge waveforms are converted to streams of binary-valued events, which are then processed by the SNN. We present our insights on the various system design choices - from data encoding to optimal hyperparameters of the training algorithm - for an accurate and compact SNN optimized for hardware deployment. Our results show that an SNN trained with an evolutionary algorithm and an optimized set of hyperparameters obtains a signal efficiency of about 91% with nearly half as many parameters as a deep neural network.

Jason Yik, Korneel Van den Berghe, Douwe den Blanken et al. · eth-zurich

Neuromorphic computing shows promise for advancing computing efficiency and capabilities of AI applications using brain-inspired principles. However, the neuromorphic research field currently lacks standardized benchmarks, making it difficult to accurately measure technological advancements, compare performance with conventional methods, and identify promising future research directions. Prior neuromorphic computing benchmark efforts have not seen widespread adoption due to a lack of inclusive, actionable, and iterative benchmark design and guidelines. To address these shortcomings, we present NeuroBench: a benchmark framework for neuromorphic computing algorithms and systems. NeuroBench is a collaboratively-designed effort from an open community of researchers across industry and academia, aiming to provide a representative structure for standardizing the evaluation of neuromorphic approaches. The NeuroBench framework introduces a common set of tools and systematic methodology for inclusive benchmark measurement, delivering an objective reference framework for quantifying neuromorphic approaches in both hardware-independent (algorithm track) and hardware-dependent (system track) settings. In this article, we outline tasks and guidelines for benchmarks across multiple application domains, and present initial performance baselines across neuromorphic and conventional approaches for both benchmark tracks. NeuroBench is intended to continually expand its benchmarks and features to foster and track the progress made by the research community.

Md Sakib Hasan, Catherine D. Schuman, Zhongyang Zhang et al.

Neuromorphic Computing promises orders of magnitude improvement in energy efficiency compared to traditional von Neumann computing paradigm. The goal is to develop an adaptive, fault-tolerant, low-footprint, fast, low-energy intelligent system by learning and emulating brain functionality which can be realized through innovation in different abstraction layers including material, device, circuit, architecture and algorithm. As the energy consumption in complex vision tasks keep increasing exponentially due to larger data set and resource-constrained edge devices become increasingly ubiquitous, spike-based neuromorphic computing approaches can be viable alternative to deep convolutional neural network that is dominating the vision field today. In this book chapter, we introduce neuromorphic computing, outline a few representative examples from different layers of the design stack (devices, circuits and algorithms) and conclude with a few exciting applications and future research directions that seem promising for computer vision in the near future.

Samuel Schmidgall, Catherine Schuman, Maryam Parsa

Grand efforts in neuroscience are working toward mapping the connectomes of many new species, including the near completion of the Drosophila melanogaster. It is important to ask whether these models could benefit artificial intelligence. In this work we ask two fundamental questions: (1) where and when biological connectomes can provide use in machine learning, (2) which design principles are necessary for extracting a good representation of the connectome. Toward this end, we translate the motor circuit of the C. Elegans nematode into artificial neural networks at varying levels of biophysical realism and evaluate the outcome of training these networks on motor and non-motor behavioral tasks. We demonstrate that biophysical realism need not be upheld to attain the advantages of using biological circuits. We also establish that, even if the exact wiring diagram is not retained, the architectural statistics provide a valuable prior. Finally, we show that while the C. Elegans locomotion circuit provides a powerful inductive bias on locomotion problems, its structure may hinder performance on tasks unrelated to locomotion such as visual classification problems.

Shay Snyder, Victoria Clerico, Guojing Cong et al.

Graph neural networks have emerged as a specialized branch of deep learning, designed to address problems where pairwise relations between objects are crucial. Recent advancements utilize graph convolutional neural networks to extract features within graph structures. Despite promising results, these methods face challenges in real-world applications due to sparse features, resulting in inefficient resource utilization. Recent studies draw inspiration from the mammalian brain and employ spiking neural networks to model and learn graph structures. However, these approaches are limited to traditional Von Neumann-based computing systems, which still face hardware inefficiencies. In this study, we present a fully neuromorphic implementation of spiking graph neural networks designed for Loihi 2. We optimize network parameters using Lava Bayesian Optimization, a novel hyperparameter optimization system compatible with neuromorphic computing architectures. We showcase the performance benefits of combining neuromorphic Bayesian optimization with our approach for citation graph classification using fixed-precision spiking neurons. Our results demonstrate the capability of integer-precision, Loihi 2 compatible spiking neural networks in performing citation graph classification with comparable accuracy to existing floating point implementations.

Karan P. Patel, Andrew Maicke, Jared Arzate et al.

Novel devices and novel computing paradigms are key for energy efficient, performant future computing systems. However, designing devices for new applications is often time consuming and tedious. Here, we investigate the design and optimization of spin orbit torque and spin transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction models as the probabilistic devices for true random number generation. We leverage reinforcement learning and evolutionary optimization to vary key device and material properties of the various device models for stochastic operation. Our AI guided codesign methods generated different candidate devices capable of generating stochastic samples for a desired probability distribution, while also minimizing energy usage for the devices.

James Ghawaly, Andrew Nicholson, Catherine Schuman et al.

We present a general framework for training spiking neural networks (SNNs) to perform binary classification on multivariate time series, with a focus on step-wise prediction and high precision at low false alarm rates. The approach uses the Evolutionary Optimization of Neuromorphic Systems (EONS) algorithm to evolve sparse, stateful SNNs by jointly optimizing their architectures and parameters. Inputs are encoded into spike trains, and predictions are made by thresholding a single output neuron's spike counts. We also incorporate simple voting ensemble methods to improve performance and robustness. To evaluate the framework, we apply it with application-specific optimizations to the task of detecting low signal-to-noise ratio radioactive sources in gamma-ray spectral data. The resulting SNNs, with as few as 49 neurons and 66 synapses, achieve a 51.8% true positive rate (TPR) at a false alarm rate of 1/hr, outperforming PCA (42.7%) and deep learning (49.8%) baselines. A three-model any-vote ensemble increases TPR to 67.1% at the same false alarm rate. Hardware deployment on the microCaspian neuromorphic platform demonstrates 2mW power consumption and 20.2ms inference latency. We also demonstrate generalizability by applying the same framework, without domain-specific modification, to seizure detection in EEG recordings. An ensemble achieves 95% TPR with a 16% false positive rate, comparable to recent deep learning approaches with significant reduction in parameter count.

Danny Scott, William LaForest, Hritom Das et al.

The deployment of dense, low-cost sensors is critical for realizing ubiquitous smart environments. However, existing sensing solutions struggle with the energy, scalability, and reliability trade-offs imposed by battery maintenance, wireless transmission overhead, and data processing complexity. In this work, we present Vibe2Spike, a novel battery-free, wireless sensing framework that enables vibration-based activity recognition using visible light communication (VLC) and spiking neural networks (SNNs). Our system uses ultra-low-cost tags composed only of a piezoelectric disc, a Zener diode, and an LED, which harvest vibration energy and emit sparse visible light spikes without requiring batteries or RF radios. These optical spikes are captured by event cameras and classified using optimized SNN models evolved via the EONS framework. We evaluate Vibe2Spike across five device classes, achieving 94.9\% average classification fitness while analyzing the latency-accuracy trade-offs of different temporal binning strategies. Vibe2Spike demonstrates a scalable, and energy-efficient approach for enabling intelligent environments in a batteryless manner.

Tokey Tahmid, Mark Gates, Piotr Luszczek et al.

In this era of AI revolution, massive investments in large-scale data-driven AI systems demand high-performance computing, consuming tremendous energy and resources. This trend raises new challenges in optimizing sustainability without sacrificing scalability or performance. Among the energy-efficient alternatives of the traditional Von Neumann architecture, neuromorphic computing and its Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are a promising choice due to their inherent energy efficiency. However, in some real-world application scenarios such as complex continuous control tasks, SNNs often lack the performance optimizations that traditional artificial neural networks have. Researchers have addressed this by combining SNNs with Deep Reinforcement Learning (DeepRL), yet scalability remains unexplored. In this paper, we extend our previous work on SpikeRL, which is a scalable and energy efficient framework for DeepRL-based SNNs for continuous control. In our initial implementation of SpikeRL framework, we depended on the population encoding from the Population-coded Spiking Actor Network (PopSAN) method for our SNN model and implemented distributed training with Message Passing Interface (MPI) through mpi4py. Also, further optimizing our model training by using mixed-precision for parameter updates. In our new SpikeRL framework, we have implemented our own DeepRL-SNN component with population encoding, and distributed training with PyTorch Distributed package with NCCL backend while still optimizing with mixed precision training. Our new SpikeRL implementation is 4.26X faster and 2.25X more energy efficient than state-of-the-art DeepRL-SNN methods. Our proposed SpikeRL framework demonstrates a truly scalable and sustainable solution for complex continuous control tasks in real-world applications.

James S. Plank, Catherine D. Schuman, Robert M. Patton

The OpenAI Gym project contains hundreds of control problems whose goal is to provide a testbed for reinforcement learning algorithms. One such problem is Freeway-ram-v0, where the observations presented to the agent are 128 bytes of RAM. While the goals of the project are for non-expert AI agents to solve the control problems with general training, in this work, we seek to learn more about the problem, so that we can better evaluate solutions. In particular, we develop on oracle to play the game, so that we may have baselines for success. We present details of the oracle, plus optimal game-playing situations that can be used for training and testing AI agents.

Prasanna Date, Catherine Schuman, Bill Kay et al.

Neuromorphic computing is a non-von Neumann computing paradigm that performs computation by emulating the human brain. Neuromorphic systems are extremely energy-efficient and known to consume thousands of times less power than CPUs and GPUs. They have the potential to drive critical use cases such as autonomous vehicles, edge computing and internet of things in the future. For this reason, they are sought to be an indispensable part of the future computing landscape. Neuromorphic systems are mainly used for spike-based machine learning applications, although there are some non-machine learning applications in graph theory, differential equations, and spike-based simulations. These applications suggest that neuromorphic computing might be capable of general-purpose computing. However, general-purpose computability of neuromorphic computing has not been established yet. In this work, we prove that neuromorphic computing is Turing-complete and therefore capable of general-purpose computing. Specifically, we present a model of neuromorphic computing, with just two neuron parameters (threshold and leak), and two synaptic parameters (weight and delay). We devise neuromorphic circuits for computing all the μ-recursive functions (i.e., constant, successor and projection functions) and all the μ-recursive operators (i.e., composition, primitive recursion and minimization operators). Given that the μ-recursive functions and operators are precisely the ones that can be computed using a Turing machine, this work establishes the Turing-completeness of neuromorphic computing.

Maryam Parsa, Catherine D. Schuman, Prasanna Date et al.

Training neural networks for neuromorphic deployment is non-trivial. There have been a variety of approaches proposed to adapt back-propagation or back-propagation-like algorithms appropriate for training. Considering that these networks often have very different performance characteristics than traditional neural networks, it is often unclear how to set either the network topology or the hyperparameters to achieve optimal performance. In this work, we introduce a Bayesian approach for optimizing the hyperparameters of an algorithm for training binary communication networks that can be deployed to neuromorphic hardware. We show that by optimizing the hyperparameters on this algorithm for each dataset, we can achieve improvements in accuracy over the previous state-of-the-art for this algorithm on each dataset (by up to 15 percent). This jump in performance continues to emphasize the potential when converting traditional neural networks to binary communication applicable to neuromorphic hardware.

Theodore Papamarkou, Hayley Guy, Bryce Kroencke et al.

Nondestructive evaluation methods play an important role in ensuring component integrity and safety in many industries. Operator fatigue can play a critical role in the reliability of such methods. This is important for inspecting high value assets or assets with a high consequence of failure, such as aerospace and nuclear components. Recent advances in convolution neural networks can support and automate these inspection efforts. This paper proposes using residual neural networks (ResNets) for real-time detection of corrosion, including iron oxide discoloration, pitting and stress corrosion cracking, in dry storage stainless steel canisters housing used nuclear fuel. The proposed approach crops nuclear canister images into smaller tiles, trains a ResNet on these tiles, and classifies images as corroded or intact using the per-image count of tiles predicted as corroded by the ResNet. The results demonstrate that such a deep learning approach allows to detect the locus of corrosion via smaller tiles, and at the same time to infer with high accuracy whether an image comes from a corroded canister. Thereby, the proposed approach holds promise to automate and speed up nuclear fuel canister inspections, to minimize inspection costs, and to partially replace human-conducted onsite inspections, thus reducing radiation doses to personnel.

Robert M. Patton, J. Travis Johnston, Steven R. Young et al.

Deep learning, through the use of neural networks, has demonstrated remarkable ability to automate many routine tasks when presented with sufficient data for training. The neural network architecture (e.g. number of layers, types of layers, connections between layers, etc.) plays a critical role in determining what, if anything, the neural network is able to learn from the training data. The trend for neural network architectures, especially those trained on ImageNet, has been to grow ever deeper and more complex. The result has been ever increasing accuracy on benchmark datasets with the cost of increased computational demands. In this paper we demonstrate that neural network architectures can be automatically generated, tailored for a specific application, with dual objectives: accuracy of prediction and speed of prediction. Using MENNDL--an HPC-enabled software stack for neural architecture search--we generate a neural network with comparable accuracy to state-of-the-art networks on a cancer pathology dataset that is also $16\times$ faster at inference. The speedup in inference is necessary because of the volume and velocity of cancer pathology data; specifically, the previous state-of-the-art networks are too slow for individual researchers without access to HPC systems to keep pace with the rate of data generation. Our new model enables researchers with modest computational resources to analyze newly generated data faster than it is collected.

Wilkie Olin-Ammentorp, Karsten Beckmann, Catherine D. Schuman et al.

Artificial neural networks normally require precise weights to operate, despite their origins in biological systems, which can be highly variable and noisy. When implementing artificial networks which utilize analog 'synaptic' devices to encode weights, however, inherent limits are placed on the accuracy and precision with which these values can be encoded. In this work, we investigate the effects that inaccurate synapses have on spiking neurons and spiking neural networks. Starting with a mathematical analysis of integrate-and-fire (IF) neurons, including different non-idealities (such as leakage and channel noise), we demonstrate that noise can be used to make the behavior of IF neurons more robust to synaptic inaccuracy. We then train spiking networks which utilize IF neurons with and without noise and leakage, and experimentally confirm that the noisy networks are more robust. Lastly, we show that a noisy network can tolerate the inaccuracy expected when hafnium-oxide based resistive random-access memory is used to encode synaptic weights.

Kathleen E. Hamilton, Tiffany M. Mintz, Catherine D. Schuman

In this paper we consider graph algorithms and graphical analysis as a new application for neuromorphic computing platforms. We demonstrate how the nonlinear dynamics of spiking neurons can be used to implement low-level graph operations. Our results are hardware agnostic, and we present multiple versions of routines that can utilize static synapses or require synapse plasticity.

Linghao Song, Fan Chen, Steven R. Young et al.

We present a deep learning approach for vertex reconstruction of neutrino-nucleus interaction events, a problem in the domain of high energy physics. In this approach, we combine both energy and timing data that are collected in the MINERvA detector to perform classification and regression tasks. We show that the resulting network achieves higher accuracy than previous results while requiring a smaller model size and less training time. In particular, the proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art by 4.00% on classification accuracy. For the regression task, our model achieves 0.9919 on the coefficient of determination, higher than the previous work (0.96).

Catherine D. Schuman, Thomas E. Potok, Robert M. Patton et al.

Neuromorphic computing has come to refer to a variety of brain-inspired computers, devices, and models that contrast the pervasive von Neumann computer architecture. This biologically inspired approach has created highly connected synthetic neurons and synapses that can be used to model neuroscience theories as well as solve challenging machine learning problems. The promise of the technology is to create a brain-like ability to learn and adapt, but the technical challenges are significant, starting with an accurate neuroscience model of how the brain works, to finding materials and engineering breakthroughs to build devices to support these models, to creating a programming framework so the systems can learn, to creating applications with brain-like capabilities. In this work, we provide a comprehensive survey of the research and motivations for neuromorphic computing over its history. We begin with a 35-year review of the motivations and drivers of neuromorphic computing, then look at the major research areas of the field, which we define as neuro-inspired models, algorithms and learning approaches, hardware and devices, supporting systems, and finally applications. We conclude with a broad discussion on the major research topics that need to be addressed in the coming years to see the promise of neuromorphic computing fulfilled. The goals of this work are to provide an exhaustive review of the research conducted in neuromorphic computing since the inception of the term, and to motivate further work by illuminating gaps in the field where new research is needed.

Thomas E. Potok, Catherine Schuman, Steven R. Young et al.

Current Deep Learning approaches have been very successful using convolutional neural networks (CNN) trained on large graphical processing units (GPU)-based computers. Three limitations of this approach are: 1) they are based on a simple layered network topology, i.e., highly connected layers, without intra-layer connections; 2) the networks are manually configured to achieve optimal results, and 3) the implementation of neuron model is expensive in both cost and power. In this paper, we evaluate deep learning models using three different computing architectures to address these problems: quantum computing to train complex topologies, high performance computing (HPC) to automatically determine network topology, and neuromorphic computing for a low-power hardware implementation. We use the MNIST dataset for our experiment, due to input size limitations of current quantum computers. Our results show the feasibility of using the three architectures in tandem to address the above deep learning limitations. We show a quantum computer can find high quality values of intra-layer connections weights, in a tractable time as the complexity of the network increases; a high performance computer can find optimal layer-based topologies; and a neuromorphic computer can represent the complex topology and weights derived from the other architectures in low power memristive hardware.