Drone in flight test learns on the fly with special chip

Wednesday, November 5, 2014 - 05:01 in Mathematics & Economics

The great computer challenge for many scientists centers around how well a computer can learn, react and adapt from the environment. Tom Simonite of MIT Technology Review on Tuesday had a report about recent experiments at corporate and academic labs using neuromorphic chips, with networks of "neurons" that communicate in spikes of electricity. Simonite wrote that some can even automatically reprogram themselves to learn new skills. The latest news, he reported on Tuesday, is that "a neuromorphic chip has been untethered from the lab bench, and tested in a tiny drone aircraft that weighs less than 100 grams." Specifically, the drone was six inches square, 1.5 inches high, and weighed 93 grams, including the battery. The chip used only 50 milliwatts of power (not enough for a conventional computer to run software that could learn to recognize rooms). The chip mounted in the center of the aircraft has 576...

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