Neuro-inspired real-time USB & PCI to AER interfaces for vision processing

Address-event-representation (AER) is an emergent neuromorphic interchip communication protocol that allows for real-time virtual massive connectivity between huge number neurons located on different chips. By exploiting high speed digital communication circuits (with nano-seconds timings), synaptic neural connections can be time multiplexed, while neural activity signals (with miliiseconds timings) are sampled at low frequencies. When building multi-chip multi-layered AER systems it is absolutely necessary to have a computer interface that allows (a) to read AER interchip traffic into the computer and visualize it on screen, and (b) convert conventional frame-based video stream in the computer into AER and inject it at some point of the AER structure. This is necessary for test and debugging of complex AER systems. This paper describes a set of PC interfaces to neuro-inspired systems, analyses the performance and power consumption. The interfaces use PCI or USB bus connections that have been developed under an EU project, where they have been tested in a stressed situation.