Hand-Gesture Recognition Based on EMG and Event-Based Camera Sensor Fusion: A Benchmark in Neuromorphic Computing.

Hand gestures are a form of non-verbal communication used by individuals in conjunction with speech to communicate. Nowadays, with the increasing use of technology, hand-gesture recognition is considered to be an important aspect of Human-Machine Interaction (HMI), allowing the machine to capture and interpret the user's intent and to respond accordingly. The ability to discriminate between human gestures can help in several applications, such as assisted living, healthcare, neuro-rehabilitation, and sports. Recently, multi-sensor data fusion mechanisms have been investigated to improve discrimination accuracy. In this paper, we present a sensor fusion framework that integrates complementary systems: the electromyography (EMG) signal from muscles and visual information. This multi-sensor approach, while improving accuracy and robustness, introduces the disadvantage of high computational cost, which grows exponentially with the number of sensors and the number of measurements. Furthermore, this huge amount of data to process can affect the classification latency which can be crucial in real-case scenarios, such as prosthetic control. Neuromorphic technologies can be deployed to overcome these limitations since they allow real-time processing in parallel at low power consumption. In this paper, we present a fully neuromorphic sensor fusion approach for hand-gesture recognition comprised of an event-based vision sensor and three different neuromorphic processors. In particular, we used the event-based camera, called DVS, and two neuromorphic platforms, Loihi and ODIN + MorphIC. The EMG signals were recorded using traditional electrodes and then converted into spikes to be fed into the chips. We collected a dataset of five gestures from sign language where visual and electromyography signals are synchronized. We compared a fully neuromorphic approach to a baseline implemented using traditional machine learning approaches on a portable GPU system. According to the chip's constraints, we designed specific spiking neural networks (SNNs) for sensor fusion that showed classification accuracy comparable to the software baseline. These neuromorphic alternatives have increased inference time, between 20 and 40%, with respect to the GPU system but have a significantly smaller energy-delay product (EDP) which makes them between 30× and 600× more efficient. The proposed work represents a new benchmark that moves neuromorphic computing toward a real-world scenario.

Robustness to Training Disturbances in SpikeProp Learning.

Stability is a key issue during spiking neural network training using SpikeProp. The inherent nonlinearity of Spiking Neuron means that the learning manifold changes abruptly; therefore, we need to carefully choose the learning steps at every instance. Other sources of instability are the external disturbances that come along with training sample as well as the internal disturbances that arise due to modeling imperfection. The unstable learning scenario can be indirectly observed in the form of surges, which are sudden increases in the learning cost and are a common occurrence during SpikeProp training. Research in the past has shown that proper learning step size is crucial to minimize surges during training process. To determine proper learning step in order to avoid steep learning manifolds, we perform weight convergence analysis of SpikeProp learning in the presence of disturbance signals. The weight convergence analysis is further extended to robust stability analysis linked with overall system error. This ensures boundedness of the total learning error with minimal assumption of bounded disturbance signals. These analyses result in the learning rate normalization scheme, which are the key results of this paper. The performance of learning using this scheme has been compared with the prevailing methods for different benchmark data sets and the results show that this method has stable learning reflected by minimal surges during learning, higher success in training instances, and faster learning as well.

Robust spike-train learning in spike-event based weight update.

Supervised learning algorithms in a spiking neural network either learn a spike-train pattern for a single neuron receiving input spike-train from multiple input synapses or learn to output the first spike time in a feedforward network setting. In this paper, we build upon spike-event based weight update strategy to learn continuous spike-train in a spiking neural network with a hidden layer using a dead zone on-off based adaptive learning rate rule which ensures convergence of the learning process in the sense of weight convergence and robustness of the learning process to external disturbances. Based on different benchmark problems, we compare this new method with other relevant spike-train learning algorithms. The results show that the speed of learning is much improved and the rate of successful learning is also greatly improved.

Robust learning in SpikeProp.

Training a Spiking Neural Network using SpikeProp and its derivatives faces stability issues. Surges, marked by a sudden rise in learning cost, are a common occurrence during the learning process. They disrupt the learning process and often destabilize the process resulting in failure. A proper learning rate, which is neither too small nor too big, is important to minimize surges. Furthermore, external disturbances due to imperfection in sample data as well as internal disturbances are additional destabilizing source during the learning process. In this paper, we perform error system analysis incorporating external disturbance, followed by weight convergence analysis along with detailed robust stability analysis of SpikeProp learning process to ensure error bound of the learning process. Based on these results, we propose a robust adaptive learning rate scheme that aligns with the results of theoretical analysis. The performance of the proposed method has been compared with other prevalent methods based on different benchmark datasets and the results demonstrate that our method indeed has better performance in terms of convergence and learning speed as well.

Adaptive learning rate of SpikeProp based on weight convergence analysis.

A Spiking Neural Network (SNN) training using SpikeProp and its variants is usually affected by sudden rise in learning cost called surges. These surges cause diversion in the learning process and often cause it to fail as well. Researches have shown that proper learning rate is crucial to avoid these surges. In this paper, we perform weight convergence analysis to determine the proper step size in each iteration of weight update and derive an adaptive learning rate extension to SpikeProp that assures convergence of the learning process. We have analyzed the performance of this learning rate adaptation with existing methods via simulations on different benchmarks. The results show that using adaptive learning rate significantly improves the weight convergence and speeds up learning as well.