Spiking Neural Networks with Continual Learning for Steering Angle Regression: A Sustainable AI Perspective

This work explores the application of Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) and Continual Learning (CL) methodologies to the problem of steering angle regression, using autonomous driving simulation as the experimental context, with a focus on energy efficiency and alignment with sustainable computing objectives. The primary goal was to design and implement CL techniques in SNNs to assess the model’s ability to maintain accuracy in explored environments while reducing CO2 emissions through the optimized use of a subset of the data. This study emerges in response to the increasing energy demand of deep learning models, which poses a challenge to sustainability. SNNs, inspired by the efficiency of biological neural systems, offer significant advantages in terms of computational and energy consumption, making them a promising alternative. CL techniques, such as Elastic Weight Consolidation and replay memory, are integrated to mitigate catastrophic forgetting in sequential learning tasks. The methodology includes adapting the PilotNet architecture for SNNs, preprocessing datasets generated in the Udacity driving simulator, and evaluating models in incremental learning scenarios. The experiments compare the performance of SNNs with CL against baseline models without CL, using mean squared error (MSE), computational efficiency, and equivalent CO2 emissions as evaluation metrics. The results demonstrate that replay memory enables the retention of prior knowledge with a limited increase in energy consumption. This work concludes that SNNs with CL are a viable alternative for sustainable AI applications. Future research directions include a focus primarily on hardware-specific implementations and real-world testing.