Biomimetic FPGA-based spatial navigation model with grid cells and place cells

The mammalian spatial navigation system is characterized by an initial divergence of internal representations, with disparate classes of neurons responding to distinct features including location, speed, borders and head direction; an ensuing convergence finally enables navigation and path integration. Here, we report the algorithmic and hardware implementation of biomimetic neural structures encompassing a feed-forward trimodular, multi-layer architecture representing grid-cell, place-cell and decoding modules for navigation. The grid-cell module comprised of neurons that fired in a grid-like pattern, and was built of distinct layers that constituted the dorsoventral span of the medial entorhinal cortex. Each layer was built as an independent continuous attractor network with distinct grid-field spatial scales. The place-cell module comprised of neurons that fired at one or few spatial locations, organized into different clusters based on convergent modular inputs from different grid-cell layers, replicating the gradient in place-field size along the hippocampal dorso-ventral axis. The decoding module, a two-layer neural network that constitutes the convergence of the divergent representations in preceding modules, received inputs from the place-cell module and provided specific coordinates of the navigating object. After vital design optimizations involving all modules, we implemented the tri-modular structure on Zynq Ultrascale+ field-programmable gate array silicon chip, and demonstrated its capacity in precisely estimating the navigational trajectory with minimal overall resource consumption involving a mere 2.92% Look Up Table utilization. Our implementation of a biomimetic, digital spatial navigation system is stable, reliable, reconfigurable, real-time with execution time of about 32 s for 100k input samples (in contrast to 40 minutes on Intel Core i7-7700 CPU with 8 cores clocking at 3.60 GHz) and thus can be deployed for autonomous-robotic navigation without requiring additional sensors.