Towards Neuro-Inspired Electronic Oscillators Based on The Dynamical Relaying Mechanism

Abstract

Electronic oscillators are used for the generation of both continuous and discrete signals, playing a fundamental role in today’s electronics. In both contexts, these systems require stringent performances such as spectral purity, low phase noise, frequency and temperature stability. In state of the art oscillators the preservation of some of these aspects is jeopardized by specific critical issues, e.g., the sensitivity to load capacitance or the component aging over time. This leaves room for the search of new technologies for their realization. On the other hand, in the last decade electronics has been influenced by a growing number of neuro-inspired mechanisms, which allowed for alternative techniques aimed at solving some classical critical issues. In this paper we present an exploratory study for the development of electronic oscillators based on the neuro-inspired mechanism dynamical relaying, which relies on a structure composed of three delay coupled units (as neurons or even neuron populations) able to resonate and self-organise to generate and maintain a given rhythm with great reliability over a considerable parameter range, showing robustness to noise. We used the recent leaky integrated and fire with latency (LIFL) as neuron model. We have initially developed the mathematical model of the neuro-inspired oscillator, and implemented it using Matlab®; then, we have realized the schematic of such system in PSpice®. Finally, the model has been validated to verify whether it observes the fundamental properties of the dynamical relaying mechanisms described in computational neuroscience studies, and if the circuit implementation presents the same behaviour of the mathematical model. Validation results suggest that the dynamical relaying mechanism can be proficuously taken in consideration as alternative strategy for the design of electronic oscillators.