Nervous Systems Project

About the Project

A cross-disciplinary team of researchers from the Universities of York and Ulster are working together on an exciting new EPSRC-funded project, Nervous Systems, to design and use artificial spiking neural networks (SNNs) as embodied electronic nervous system, developing novel nervous system-inspired design methodology and hardware architecture, and applying them to real world tasks including autonomous fault detection and prediction in electronic systems.

In complex living organisms, the nervous system is the part that detects environmental changes and internal anomalies that impact them, by transmitting signals between different parts of the organism. The nervous system works in tandem with the endocrine system, triggering appropriate regulatory or repair responses. In Nervous Systems we envisage a self-aware electronic system with an embedded artificial nervous system that can sense its state and performance, and exploit the structure and computational power of these kinds of bio-inspired mechanisms for autonomous fault tolerance.

Summer'24 Internship Projects at York

We have 4 internship projects available for a 10-week period over the summer vacation in York, 10 June - 13 September 2024. These will explore and implement various aspects of artificial neural networks, nervous systems, and their applications in neuromorphic (brain-inspired) hardware. Some projects are software only; some include a hardware/robotics component; all require programming ability and some embedded hardware skills. The current internship pay rate is £12.00 per hour, plus paid holiday.

Interns will focus on their individual projects, but may interact as a group, to allow for maximum co-learning. You will be co-supervised by members of the Nervous Systems project team: Mr Shimeng Wu, Dr Andrew Walter, Prof Andy Tyrrell, and Prof Martin Trefzer, and will also interact with our project partners from Ulster University.

Internships are open to any undergraduate who can spend the summer working in York. To apply, you should submit a CV (1-2pp) and a personal statement (~1/2 page) saying why you want this internship. You should rank the projects in order of preference, or state "any". Please send your application and contact us if you have any queries.

Projects available are:
Nervous Robot
Spiking Neural Network Breadboard
Radiation Hard Nervous Hardware
Neuromorphic MNIST with Microcircuits

Full decription PDF here.

Apply here!

Meet the team and partners

Nervous Systems Team

Contacts

Resources

DATE'23 Tutorial M02 - Nervous Systems

From Spiking Neural Networks and Reservoir Computing to Neuromorphic Fault-tolerant Hardware

Talk 1 - Introduction to SNNs.
Talk 2 - Neuromorphic Hardware Overview.
Talk 3 - Applications of SNNs and Neuromorphic HW.
Talk 4 - Nervous Systems and Microcircuits.

DATE'23 Tutorial - SNNs with Python and Brian2

This tutorial introduces simulation of spiking neural networks (SNNs) using the Brian2 simulator with Python. You will run examples of a small 5-node SNN, which is fully-connected, as well as some SNN microcircuits that were produced in the Nervous Systems project, which are capable of recognising different characters in text. Below are two links, one for the tutorial instructions, and another for the code needed to run the tutorial.
Instructions download.
Code download.

DATE'23 Tutorial - SNNs with VHDL and Xilinx Vivado

This tutorial introduces simulation of spiking neural networks (SNNs) using the Xilinx Vivado simulator with VHDL. You will run examples of a small SNN, which is based on a leaky intergate and fire model implemented in VHDL. You will run examples in simulation, although the SNN model, which was developed as part of the Nervous Systems project, is aimed at FPGA implementation. Below are two links, one for the tutorial instructions, and another for the code needed to run the tutorial.
Instructions download.
Code download.