BrainChip Holdings (ASX:BRN) was awarded a $1.8 million contract with the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to develop neuromorphic radar signal processing algorithms. The agreement is part of the Small Business Innovation Research Programme.
The total contract amount will be paid over the 12 month duration of the contract.
The technology
BrainChip specializes in the development of “neuromorphic” computing. Unlike traditional processors (such as CPUs and GPUs), which process information sequentially, neuromorphic processors aim to mimic the way the brain works.
BrainChip’s flagship product is the Akida 2.0 processor, which has applications in military, autonomous vehicles, consumer electronics and industrial IoT. The chip allows such devices to process data themselves (so-called “edge computing”) rather than sending it to a cloud server. This approach allows for faster response times, better privacy, and significantly lower power consumption.
Traditional AI models require large, pre-trained neural networks that must be fed huge datasets to “train” them to recognize patterns. The Akida 2.0 chip, in contrast, enables continuous learning and can adapt to new data on the fly. This is especially useful in dynamic environments.
The TENNs (Temporal Event Neural Network) algorithm framework is designed to work with Akida and focuses on time-based data processing, meaning it excels with video, audio, radar and sensor data.
Contract details
The project will focus on the development and optimization of radar processing algorithms adapted to BrainChip’s proprietary hardware.
The SBIR contract, titled “Mapping Complex Sensor Signal Processing Algorithms on Neuromorphic Chips,” builds on prior work in which a multinational aerospace and defense customer successfully demonstrated the feasibility of running Radar processing on BrainChip hardware.
The current contract will apply this work to a specific type of radar processing known as micro-Doppler signature analysis, which allows discrimination of different types of activity by analyzing subtle patterns of motion. For example, the processing could detect whether a person is walking, running or standing still.
This capability has potential applications in the military, robotics and space platforms.
Yesterday the stock closed up 11.36% at 24 cents.