Special Issue on Integration of Intelligence for Robotics in VLSI Chips

Abstract

Intelligence is one of the most important subjects in information and electronics systems. In many applications such as multi media systems, home electronics systems, factory automation systems, security systems and aerospace systems, advanced intelligent processing technologies are more required to be developed as shown in Figure. There are two approaches to increase intelligence, although they are closely related each other and may not be separable. One is an algorithm-based approach to directly increase intelligence quality. The other is a computational-power-based approach to directly increase processing performance. Even if a single operation is very simple, its repeated operations often make the processing intelligent. The problem is how to increase the computational power. It is obvious that software acceleration using general-purpose microprocessors has some limitation. Therefore, special acceleration using newly developed chips is one of the most important solutions. In particular, real-world applications need to achieve very quick response for dynamically changing real-world environment. Therefore, special-purpose processors and special-purpose accelerators or engines, are essential to make the above applications realistic. Another words, ""to realize high speed processing intelligence"" On the other hand, solid-state circuits technology enabling single-chip systems have rapid advancement resulting in dramatic improvements in both performance and cost oer function. In fact, one-giga-bit DRAMs, ten SPECint95 microprocessors containing ten million transistors are being developed by recent VLSI technology. It is no more a dream to develop practical special processors using the recent VLSI technology. Moreover, new architecture and new concept circuits have been actively studied for the next-generation integration technology. From the above point of view, this special issue was planned to demonstrate the above important area. Especially, intelligent robot is a typical class of applications, soits intelligence technology makes also any other application promising. Finally, I would like to express my application to the authors for their efforts and contributions to this special issue and also the members of the Editorial Board for their useful comments.