US scientists are building a $12m 'digital brain' for drones inspired by insects

A $12 million research project at Penn State is trying to give drones a new way of making decisions, drawing inspiration from the small brains of insects and other animals. Funded by the US Army’s Army Research Laboratory, the project aims to develop an onboard sensing system that can pick out useful information without sending large amounts of data to external computers. The team, led by Saptarshi Das, is studying how animals such as locusts and owls filter sensory information despite having tiny brains. Their proposed system would use analogue computing, graphene-based components and memristors to process signals while using less power. A cochlea-inspired structure would help filter information before it reaches conventional digital processing. The researchers also plan circuits that mimic coincidence-detecting neurons, allowing drones to respond to combinations of signals rather than processing everything they encounter.