Penn State team builds $12 million insect-inspired digital brain for autonomous drones

Penn State’s $12 million initiative, financed by the US Army’s Army Research Laboratory, seeks to give drones a biologically inspired decision engine that operates without cloud connectivity. Professor Saptarshi Das and a multi-university team are modeling how insects and owls handle sensory overload with minuscule brains, then translating those principles into hardware. The design employs analogue processing, graphene-based field-effect transistors, memristors and a cochlea-style filter to cut energy consumption and avoid constant digital conversion.

By emulating coincidence-detecting neurons, the system will prioritize combined signal events over isolated noise. Researchers also plan a noise-like communication scheme for coordinated drone swarms. Demonstrations will progress yearly, scaling from a single unit to multiple autonomous drones while keeping size, weight and power constraints in check.