These guys have applied stochastic computing to the process of pattern recognition. The problem here is to compare an input signal with a reference signal to determine whether they match.
In the real world, of course, input signals are always noisy so a system that can cope with noise has an obvious advantage.
Canals and co use their technique to help an autonomous vehicle navigate its way through a simple environment for which it has an internal map. For this task, it has to measure the distance to the walls around it and work out where it is on the map. It then computes a trajectory taking it to its destination.
santecarloni on 13 Jan 12Sometime in the last few billion years, disaster struck one of Earth's nearest neighbours. Planetary geologists think there is good evidence that Venus was the victim of a runaway greenhouse effect which turned the planet into the boiling hell we see today. A similar catastrophe is almost certain to strike Earth in about 2 billion years, as the Sun increases in luminosity.
LeopoldS on 14 Jan 12the actual paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.1593 just wondering if their conclusion that the long term solution is to change the orbit of Earth is really the ultimate wisdom ...
