Connectionists: 2019 Misha Mahowald Prize for Neuromorphic Engineering

[Terry Sejnowski]

Winner of the 2019 Misha Mahowald Prize for Neuromorphic Engineering

The pioneering space imaging project Astrosite of
The Western Sydney University research team is the
2019 winner of the prestigious Misha Mahowald Prize
for Neuromorphic Engineering.

Neuromorphic engineering is a field of electrical engineering
that takes inspiration from neural systems in biology
to build brain-like technology. The Misha Mahowald Prize
- named for one of the most influential pioneers of
neuromorphic engineering, and valued at $10,000 -
is awarded each year to recognise outstanding research in the field.

The 2019 Prize has been awarded to Associate Professor
Gregory Cohen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Saeed Afshar,
Technical Officers Mr Colin Symons and Mr Paras Karki,
and Professor Andre van Schaik - from the University's
International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS)
and MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development.

The team has been recognised for the Astrosite
- a mobile space situational awareness (SSA) module
based on event-based neuromorphic sensors that was
unveiled in February 2019 at the Australian Avalon Airshow.
The neuromorphic sensors offer a novel means of performing
SSA tasks and provide capabilities that cannot be achieved
using conventional astronomy cameras. These benefits include
the abilities to operate during daylight conditions,
image under a wide range of lighting conditions,
and to perform continuous and frame-free sky imaging.

Lead researcher, Associate Professor Gregory Cohen,
says the ground-breaking Astrosite project has already
proven game-changing in a number of fields, including defence.

"With tens of thousands of man-made objects currently
orbiting in space, the risk of collision between debris,
satellites and spacecraft has become a serious concern
for organisations with a commercial interest in space,
as well as national and international defence agencies,"
says Associate Professor Cohen.

"The Astrosite uses event-based sensors that are inspired
by the human eye, in which each pixel operates independently
to detect only local changes in light intensity,
in contrast to standard cameras where all pixels
are captured at the same instant in time. This gives
the event-based sensors an unprecedented resolution
in time and dynamic range of intensity."

The Misha Mahowald Prize (mahowaldprize.org) is managed
by iniForum GmbH,  Switzerland, and decided by a jury
of internationally recognised experts.

Associate Professor Cohen will accept the Prize on behalf
of the ICNS team at a special awards ceremony as part
of the 2020 CapoCaccia Workshop Conference
Toward Neuromorphic Intelligence in Sardinia, Italy.

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