Flyintel – a Platform for Robot Navigation based on a Brain-Inspired Spiking Neural Network

Abstract

Spiking neural networks (SNN) are regarded by many as the “third generation network” that will solve computation problems in a more biologically realistic way. In our project, we design a robotic platform controlled by a user-defined SNN in order to develop a next generation artificial intelligence robot with high flexibility. This paper describes the preliminary progress of the project. We first implement a basic simple decision network and the robot is able to perform a basic but vital foraging and risk-avoiding task. Next, we implement the neural network of the fruit fly central complex in order to endow the robot with spatial orientation memory, a crucial function underlying the ability of spatial navigation.