Spiking auto-encoder for static and spatio-temporal neuromorphic pattern reconstruction

Spiking Auto-Encoders (SAEs) have the potential to greatly outperform deep learning auto-encoders in power efficiency, yet their performance remains a challenge. This work enhances both power efficiency and accuracy by reducing spike counts and introducing key innovations. We propose a novel decoder neuron model that enables precise spike timing and implement a weight-dependent Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP) mechanism in the encoder for better feature learning. Our architecture encodes static MNIST images using only a single spike and reconstructs spatio-temporal data from the Spiking Heidelberg Digits (SHD) dataset, optimizing the spike count for reconstruction. This substantial reduction in spike usage translates to a marked improvement in power efficiency. In addition, the average Mean Square Error (MSE) for the MNIST images was found to be 0.039, representing a 99.93% reduction from previous results. These improvements advance neuromorphic systems toward more practical, efficient applications.