English

Real-time processing of analog signals on accelerated neuromorphic hardware

Neural and Evolutionary Computing 2026-02-16 v2

Abstract

Sensory processing with neuromorphic systems is typically done by using either event-based sensors or translating input signals to spikes before presenting them to the neuromorphic processor. Here, we offer an alternative approach: direct analog signal injection eliminates superfluous and power-intensive analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversions, making it particularly suitable for efficient near-sensor processing. We demonstrate this by using the accelerated BrainScaleS-2 mixed-signal neuromorphic research platform and interfacing it directly to microphones and a servo-motor-driven actuator. Utilizing BrainScaleS-2's 1000-fold acceleration factor, we employ a spiking neural network to transform interaural time differences into a spatial code and thereby predict the location of sound sources. Our primary contributions are the first demonstrations of direct, continuous-valued sensor data injection into the analog compute units of the BrainScaleS-2 ASIC, and actuator control using its embedded microprocessors. This enables a fully on-chip processing pipeline\unicodex2014\unicode{x2014}from sensory input handling, via spiking neural network processing to physical action. We showcase this by programming the system to localize and align a servo motor with the spatial direction of transient noise peaks in real-time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.04582,
  title  = {Real-time processing of analog signals on accelerated neuromorphic hardware},
  author = {Yannik Stradmann and Johannes Schemmel and Mihai A. Petrovici and Laura Kriener},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.04582},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

6 pages, 5 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:35:58.148Z