Analog VLSI architecture for computing heading direction

We describe a parallel analog VLSI architecture that integrates optical flow data obtained from arrays of elementary velocity sensors to estimate the direction of heading for pure translational motion sequences. We performed software simulations at different levels of abstraction to evaluate the most important qualitative properties of the optical flow field, determine the best functional operators for the implementation of the architecture and define the numerical values of some of the free parameters present in the hardware implementation. Furthermore we describe the properties of the circuits used in the hardware implementation and the functionality of the elementary motion sensors used to extract the optical flow field. Measurements from the chips developed and software simulation results are provided to show the validity of the followed approach