A biomimetic VLSI architecture for small target tracking

Tracking of a target in a cluttered environment requires extensive computational architecture. However, even a small housefly is adept at pursuing its prey. Biomimetic algorithms suggest a way of looking at this problem. In the lobula plate of a fly´s brain, a neural circuit is hypothesized based on a tangential cell called the figure detection (FD) cell. The proposed small target fixation algorithm based on electrophysiological recordings does not take into account the translation of the pursuer during pursuit. We have modified the biological algorithm to include this aspect of tracking. In this paper, we present the elaborated biological algorithm for small target tracking, and an analog VLSI implementation of this algorithm.