Bees display the remarkable ability to return home in a straight line after meandering excursions to their environment. Neurobiological imaging studies have revealed that this capability emerges from a path integration mechanism implemented within the insect's brain. In the present work, we emulate this neural network on the neuromorphic mixed-signal processor BrainScaleS-2 to guide bees, virtually embodied on a digital co-processor, back to their home location after randomly exploring their environment. To realize the underlying neural integrators, we introduce single-neuron spike-based short-term memory cells with axo-axonic synapses. All entities, including environment, sensory organs, brain, actuators, and the virtual body, run autonomously on a single BrainScaleS-2 microchip. The functioning network is fine-tuned for better precision and reliability through an evolution strategy. As BrainScaleS-2 emulates neural processes 1000 times faster than biology, 4800 consecutive bee journeys distributed over 320 generations occur within only half an hour on a single neuromorphic core.
@article{arxiv.2401.00473,
title = {Emulating insect brains for neuromorphic navigation},
author = {Korbinian Schreiber and Timo Wunderlich and Philipp Spilger and Sebastian Billaudelle and Benjamin Cramer and Yannik Stradmann and Christian Pehle and Eric Müller and Mihai A. Petrovici and Johannes Schemmel and Karlheinz Meier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.00473},
year = {2024}
}