Unifying Spike Perception and Prediction: A Compact Spike Representation Model Using Multi-scale Correlation

The widespread adoption of bio-inspired cameras has catalyzed the development of spike-based intelligent applications. Despite its innovative imaging principle allows for functionality in extreme scenarios, the intricate nature of spike signals poses processing challenges to achieve desired performance. Traditional methods struggles to deliver visual perception and temporal prediction simultaneously, and they lack the flexibility needed for diverse intelligent applications. To address this problem, we analyze the spatio-temporal correlations between spike information at different temporal scales. A novel spike processing method is introduced for compact spike representations that utilizes intra-scale correlation for higher predictive accuracy. Additionally, we propose a multi-scale spatio-temporal aggregation unit (MSTAU) that further leverages inter-scale correlation to achieve efficient perception and precise prediction. Experimental results show noticeable improvements in scene reconstruction and object classification, with increases of 3.49dB in scene reconstruction quality and 2.20% in accuracy, respectively. Besides, the proposed method accommodate different visual applications via switching analysis models, offering a novel perspective for spike processing.