A calibratable sensory neuron based on epitaxial VO2 for spike-based neuromorphic multisensory system

TLDR

Neuromorphic perception systems inspired by biology can efficiently process multi‑sensory signals, yet a hardware element that senses and encodes multiple physical signals remains unavailable. The study develops a spike‑based neuromorphic perception system using calibratable VO₂ sensory neurons to overcome cycle‑to‑cycle and device‑to‑device variation, enabling e‑skin and neurorobotics applications. Epitaxial VO₂ neurons are calibrated with a resistor for consistency and scaled with another resistor to encode illuminance, temperature, pressure, and curvature signals into spikes. The calibrated VO₂ neurons accurately monitor finger curvature for hand‑gesture classification, showing reduced variation and supporting neuromorphic perception in e‑skin and neurorobotics.

Abstract

Abstract Neuromorphic perception systems inspired by biology have tremendous potential in efficiently processing multi-sensory signals from the physical world, but a highly efficient hardware element capable of sensing and encoding multiple physical signals is still lacking. Here, we report a spike-based neuromorphic perception system consisting of calibratable artificial sensory neurons based on epitaxial VO 2 , where the high crystalline quality of VO 2 leads to significantly improved cycle-to-cycle uniformity. A calibration resistor is introduced to optimize device-to-device consistency, and to adapt the VO 2 neuron to different sensors with varied resistance level, a scaling resistor is further incorporated, demonstrating cross-sensory neuromorphic perception component that can encode illuminance, temperature, pressure and curvature signals into spikes. These components are utilized to monitor the curvatures of fingers, thereby achieving hand gesture classification. This study addresses the fundamental cycle-to-cycle and device-to-device variation issues of sensory neurons, therefore promoting the construction of neuromorphic perception systems for e-skin and neurorobotics.