Anticipative Tracking with the Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity of Spintronic Devices

Abstract: Real-time tracking of high-speed objects in cognitive tasks is challenging in the present artificial intelligence techniques because the data processing and computation are time-consuming resulting in impeditive time delays. A brain-inspired continuous attractor neural network (CANN) can be used to track quickly moving targets, where the time delays are intrinsically compensated if the dynamical synapses in the network have the short-term plasticity. Here, we show that synapses with short-term depression can be realized by a magnetic tunnel junction, which perfectly reproduces the dynamics of the synaptic weight in a widely applied mathematical model. Then, these dynamical synapses are incorporated into one-dimensional and two-dimensional CANNs, which are demonstrated to have the ability to predict a moving object via micromagnetic simulations. This portable spintronics-based hardware for neuromorphic computing needs no training and is therefore very promising for the tracking technology for moving targets.