Hierarchies in Visual Pathway: Functions and Inspired Artificial Vision.

The development of artificial intelligence has posed a challenge to machine vision based on conventional complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits owing to its high latency and inefficient power consumption originating from the data shuffling between memory and computation units. Gaining more insight into the function of every part of the visual pathway for visual perception could bring the capabilities of machine vision in terms of robustness and generality. Hardware acceleration of more energy efficient and biorealistic artificial vision highly necessitates neuromorphic devices and circuits which are able to mimic the function of each part of visual pathway. In this paper, we review the structure and function of the entire class of visual neurons from retina to the primate visual cortex within reach (chapter 2). Based on the extraction of biological principles, the recent hardware implemented visual neurons located in different parts of the visual pathway are detailed discussed (chapter 3 and chapter 4). Furthermore, we attempt to provide valuable applications of inspired artificial vision in different scenarios (chapter 5). The functional description of the visual pathway and its inspired neuromorphic devices/circuits are expected to provide valuable insights for the design of next-generation artificial visual perception systems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.