Neuromorphic chip for sensing, situational awarness, and decision making in radiative environments

By a direct extension of our Phase II contract with NASA, we propose to realize a prototype of a neuromorphic chip able to withstand heavy dosage of radiations, like those encountered in the Lunar environment. The neuromorphic chip will have multiple use in a space system, from sensor data analysis to control or to system diagnosis. In particular, during our concluded Phase II we realized a test chip in silicon that has been tested on the ground. That test chip demonstrated the architecture, the computing capabilities and clearly showed the potential to reach unprecedented speed and efficiency. The architecture revolves around a analog in-memory computing architecture, a non-von Neumann design that unifies the computing module and the memory module, which becomes one and the same, removing at its root the memory transfer bottleneck, hybridized with a co-designed digital accelerator. This hybrid architecture offers incredible advantages over purely digital architectures. A key part of the innovation will reside in the use of memristors or ReRAMs. We will team up with a tier 1 company in the semiconductor fabrication processes: Applied Materials. The physics at the base of the memristor non-volatile memory behavior makes them particularly resilient to radiations. In summary, in 20 months we will combine our experience in in-memory computing architectures built during the Phase II project with the Applied Materials processing experience to deliver a TRL 7 integrated system, with a hybrid of digital and memristor-based in-memory computing chips, with the potential to unleash an unprecedented level of AI capabilities for NASA SBIR/STTR 2022 Phase-II S Solicitation Lunar explorations and beyond.

Potential NASA Applications: TX04.1.1 Sensing for Robotic systems TX04.1.2 State Estimation TX04.1.3 Onboard Mapping and Data Analysis TX04.1.4 Object, Event, and Activity Recognition TX04.5.6 Robot Control for Vehicle Capture and Berthing TX10.1.2 State Estimation and Monitoring TX10.1.4 Hazard Assessment TX10.1.5 Event and Trend Identification TX10.2.3 Motion Planning TX10.2.4 Execution and Control TX10.2.5 Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis TX10.2.7 Learning and Adapting TX17.X Other Guidance, Navigation, and Control Potential Non-NASA Applications: Many of the aforementioned potential applications can be applied for DoD missions. For the Civilian market: In-orbit Data processing (Satellite Edge), On-board AI processing in High-altitude vehicles (airplanes, UAVs), Robots for radiative environments.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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