Jane Edwards
AeroVironment received a multimillion dollar contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under the Microscale Biomimetic Robust Artificial Intelligence Networks program to study the brains of dragonfly and house fly to gain insights for use in the development of new AI models.
“The ultimate goal of the program is to learn from biology to allow us (as the human race) to develop more advanced AI with less computation and with less time for training,†N. Andrew Browning of Aerovironment said in a statement. “The AeroVironment project focus is on how insects perform robust, goal-driven, visual navigation with very low computation."
Browning works with Holger Krapp, a professor at the Imperial College; Sean Humbert, a professor at the University of Colorado; and Geoffrey Barrows of Centeye; on the two-phase MicroBRAIN project.
The first phase focuses on the study of existing data on neural networks, insect sensors and actuation, while the second phase will involve experimentation using physical and computational models.
The research team kicked off their work in April and expects to complete the project in October 2020.
