The human brain constantly makes decisions. It requires minimal power to move bodies in a desired direction or avoid an object. A Purdue University engineer uses the brain’s efficiency as inspiration to help autonomous vehicles, such as drones and robots, make crucial, time-sensitive decisions while operating in the field.

Kaushik Roy, the Edward G. Tiedemann, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Purdue’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Institute of Chips and AI, is developing brain-inspired hardware that enables autonomous devices to efficiently navigate and adapt to their environment. This work is published in Communications Engineering

AI-powered machines have advanced significantly over the past several decades thanks to machine learning, which enables these devices to recognize patterns and make predictions or decisions. But the algorithms that facilitate this learning require immense amounts of energy to operate due to their intensive calculations and the design of the hardware that runs them.