snnTrans-DHZ: A Lightweight Spiking Neural Network Architecture for Underwater Image Dehazing

Underwater image dehazing is critical for vision-based marine operations because light scattering and absorption can severely reduce visibility. This paper introduces snnTrans-DHZ, a lightweight Spiking Neural Network (SNN) specifically designed for underwater dehazing. By leveraging the temporal dynamics of SNNs, snnTrans-DHZ efficiently processes time-dependent raw image sequences while maintaining low power consumption. Static underwater images are first converted into time-dependent sequences by repeatedly inputting the same image over user-defined timesteps. These RGB sequences are then transformed into LAB color space representations and processed concurrently. The architecture features three key modules: (i) a K estimator that extracts features from multiple color space representations; (ii) a Background Light Estimator that jointly infers the background light component from the RGB-LAB images; and (iii) a soft image reconstruction module that produces haze-free, visibility-enhanced outputs. The snnTrans-DHZ model is directly trained using a surrogate gradient-based backpropagation through time (BPTT) strategy alongside a novel combined loss function. Evaluated on the UIEB benchmark, snnTrans-DHZ achieves a PSNR of 21.68 dB and an SSIM of 0.8795, and on the EUVP dataset, it yields a PSNR of 23.46 dB and an SSIM of 0.8439. With only 0.5670 million network parameters, and requiring just 7.42 GSOPs and 0.0151 J of energy, the algorithm significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of efficiency. These features make snnTrans-DHZ highly suitable for deployment in underwater robotics, marine exploration, and environmental monitoring.

Underwater Image Enhancement by Convolutional Spiking Neural Networks

Underwater image enhancement (UIE) is fundamental for marine applications, including autonomous vision-based navigation. Deep learning methods using convolutional neural networks (CNN) and vision transformers advanced UIE performance. Recently, spiking neural networks (SNN) have gained attention for their lightweight design, energy efficiency, and scalability. This paper introduces UIE-SNN, the first SNN-based UIE algorithm to improve visibility of underwater images. UIE-SNN is a 19- layered convolutional spiking encoder-decoder framework with skip connections, directly trained using surrogate gradient-based backpropagation through time (BPTT) strategy. We explore and validate the influence of training datasets on energy reduction, a unique advantage of UIE-SNN architecture, in contrast to the conventional learning-based architectures, where energy consumption is model-dependent. UIE-SNN optimizes the loss function in latent space representation to reconstruct clear underwater images. Our algorithm performs on par with its non-spiking counterpart methods in terms of PSNR and structural similarity index (SSIM) at reduced timesteps ($T=5$) and energy consumption of $85\%$. The algorithm is trained on two publicly available benchmark datasets, UIEB and EUVP, and tested on unseen images from UIEB, EUVP, LSUI, U45, and our custom UIE dataset. The UIE-SNN algorithm achieves PSNR of \(17.7801~dB\) and SSIM of \(0.7454\) on UIEB, and PSNR of \(23.1725~dB\) and SSIM of \(0.7890\) on EUVP. UIE-SNN achieves this algorithmic performance with fewer operators (\(147.49\) GSOPs) and energy (\(0.1327~J\)) compared to its non-spiking counterpart (GFLOPs = \(218.88\) and Energy=\(1.0068~J\)). Compared with existing SOTA UIE methods, UIE-SNN achieves an average of \(6.5\times\) improvement in energy efficiency. The source code is available at \href{https://github.com/vidya-rejul/UIE-SNN.git}{UIE-SNN}.

Hybrid-Neuromorphic Approach for Underwater Robotics Applications: A Conceptual Framework

This paper introduces the concept of employing neuromorphic methodologies for task-oriented underwater robotics applications. In contrast to the increasing computational demands of conventional deep learning algorithms, neuromorphic technology, leveraging spiking neural network architectures, promises sophisticated artificial intelligence with significantly reduced computational requirements and power consumption, emulating human brain operational principles. Despite documented neuromorphic technology applications in various robotic domains, its utilization in marine robotics remains largely unexplored. Thus, this article proposes a unified framework for integrating neuromorphic technologies for perception, pose estimation, and haptic-guided conditional control of underwater vehicles, customized to specific user-defined objectives. This conceptual framework stands to revolutionize underwater robotics, enhancing efficiency and autonomy while reducing energy consumption. By enabling greater adaptability and robustness, this advancement could facilitate applications such as underwater exploration, environmental monitoring, and infrastructure maintenance, thereby contributing to significant progress in marine science and technology.

Dehazing-aided Multi-Rate Multi-Modal Pose Estimation Framework for Mitigating Visual Disturbances in Extreme Underwater Domain

This paper delves into the potential of DU-VIO, a dehazing-aided hybrid multi-rate multi-modal Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO) estimation framework, designed to thrive in the challenging realm of extreme underwater environments. The cutting-edge DU-VIO framework is incorporating a GAN-based pre-processing module and a hybrid CNN-LSTM module for precise pose estimation, using visibility-enhanced underwater images and raw IMU data. Accurate pose estimation is paramount for various underwater robotics and exploration applications. However, underwater visibility is often compromised by suspended particles and attenuation effects, rendering visual-inertial pose estimation a formidable challenge. DU-VIO aims to overcome these limitations by effectively removing visual disturbances from raw image data, enhancing the quality of image features used for pose estimation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of DU-VIO by calculating RMSE scores for translation and rotation vectors in comparison to their reference values. These scores are then compared to those of a base model using a modified AQUALOC Dataset. This study's significance lies in its potential to revolutionize underwater robotics and exploration. DU-VIO offers a robust solution to the persistent challenge of underwater visibility, significantly improving the accuracy of pose estimation. This research contributes valuable insights and tools for advancing underwater technology, with far-reaching implications for scientific research, environmental monitoring, and industrial applications.

Embodied Neuromorphic Artificial Intelligence for Robotics: Perspectives, Challenges, and Research Development Stack

Robotic technologies have been an indispensable part for improving human productivity since they have been helping humans in completing diverse, complex, and intensive tasks in a fast yet accurate and efficient way. Therefore, robotic technologies have been deployed in a wide range of applications, ranging from personal to industrial use-cases. However, current robotic technologies and their computing paradigm still lack embodied intelligence to efficiently interact with operational environments, respond with correct/expected actions, and adapt to changes in the environments. Toward this, recent advances in neuromorphic computing with Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) have demonstrated the potential to enable the embodied intelligence for robotics through bio-plausible computing paradigm that mimics how the biological brain works, known as "neuromorphic artificial intelligence (AI)". However, the field of neuromorphic AI-based robotics is still at an early stage, therefore its development and deployment for solving real-world problems expose new challenges in different design aspects, such as accuracy, adaptability, efficiency, reliability, and security. To address these challenges, this paper will discuss how we can enable embodied neuromorphic AI for robotic systems through our perspectives: (P1) Embodied intelligence based on effective learning rule, training mechanism, and adaptability; (P2) Cross-layer optimizations for energy-efficient neuromorphic computing; (P3) Representative and fair benchmarks; (P4) Low-cost reliability and safety enhancements; (P5) Security and privacy for neuromorphic computing; and (P6) A synergistic development for energy-efficient and robust neuromorphic-based robotics. Furthermore, this paper identifies research challenges and opportunities, as well as elaborates our vision for future research development toward embodied neuromorphic AI for robotics.