Reaction-diffusion CNN design for a new class of biologically-inspired processors in artificial locomotion applications

The problem of artificial locomotion is known to represent a difficult task when coping with multiactuated systems controlled by one (central) or more (distributed) digital processors. Nevertheless, the studies carried out from biologists revealed that the underlying mechanism in natural locomotion can be revisited in terms of complex dynamic phenomena such as the generation and propagation of autowaves in active media. The paper describes the work carried out in the laboratories of STMicroelectronics with the aim of generating, "on-the-silicon", the same dynamics found in nature. It will be shown how a 2-layer CNN architecture, so-called Reaction-Diffusion CNN (RD-CNN), can be effective in this task, and how it can be programmed and reconfigured to reproduce a variety of complex phenomena.