A VLSI model of the bat lateral superior olive for azimuthal echolocation

Bats have long been the envy of engineers due to their ability to use echolocation to fly with speed and agility through complex 3D environments. By understanding the neurobiological basis for echolocation, we hope to emulate the efficient implementation demonstrated by nature. Bats use interaural level differences (ILD) as their primary cue for azimuthal echolocation. The Lateral Superior Olive (LSO) is the bats' first ILD processing center and plays an important role. We have designed a CMOS VLSI circuit based neuromorphic system that mimics ILD processing in the bat LSO. In this paper, we propose a simple spiking neural model of LSO cells, and a VLSI implementation of an array of cells representing the LSO population.