AUTHOR=Chao Yixun , Augenstein Philipp , Roennau Arne , Dillmann Ruediger , Xiong Zhi TITLE=Brain inspired path planning algorithms for drones JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurorobotics VOLUME=17 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurorobotics/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2023.1111861 DOI=10.3389/fnbot.2023.1111861 ISSN=1662-5218 ABSTRACT=Introduction

With the development of artificial intelligence and brain science, brain-inspired navigation and path planning has attracted widespread attention.

Methods

In this paper, we present a place cell based path planning algorithm that utilizes spiking neural network (SNN) to create efficient routes for drones. First, place cells are characterized by the leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neuron model. Then, the connection weights between neurons are trained by spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) learning rules. Afterwards, a synaptic vector field is created to avoid obstacles and to find the shortest path.

Results

Finally, simulation experiments both in a Python simulation environment and in an Unreal Engine environment are conducted to evaluate the validity of the algorithms.

Discussion

Experiment results demonstrate the validity, its robustness and the computational speed of the proposed model.