Extreme Endeavors

Biological systems far outperform any engineered system at perceiving the outside world and making useful decisions based upon those perceptions. Biology is able to perform these immensely complex perception and classification tasks at real-time speeds yet only consume the little power the body can provide. Analog computational blocks provide incredible power savings compared to digital counterparts, which is equivalent to a 20-year leap in technology. A solution that mimics biological structures will provide a reduced power consumption approach, operating at real time speeds and perform better than the alternative of digital signal processing.

Dr. David Graham from West Virginia University has been pioneering research on developing bio-inspired analog circuits and systems for signal-processing applications. His work focuses around developing a portable audio device that is similar to the human auditory system which is capable of astonishing feats of recognizing words, adapting to different sound levels, and localizing sounds. Standard methods for performing the complex auditory algorithms consume far too much power and need too much overhead for portable applications where battery power is critical.

Extreme Endeavors has begun looking at additional markets for this new and exciting technology, from biometric applications to mixed analog/digital processing systems. This ground breaking work will lead to human worn applications of electronics and sensor systems that remain powered by a single D-cell for 20 years!