Hybrid Spiking Fully Convolutional Neural Network for Semantic Segmentation

The spiking neural network (SNN) exhibits distinct advantages in terms of low power consumption due to its event-driven nature. However, it is limited to simple computer vision tasks because the direct training of SNNs is challenging. In this study, we propose a hybrid architecture called the spiking fully convolutional neural network (SFCNN) to expand the application of SNNs in the field of semantic segmentation. To train the SNN, we employ the surrogate gradient method along with backpropagation. The accuracy of mean intersection over union (mIoU) for the VOC2012 dataset is higher than that of existing spiking FCNs by almost 30%. The accuracy of mIoU can reach 39.6%. Moreover, the proposed hybrid SFCNN achieved excellent segmentation performance for other datasets such as COCO2017, DRIVE, and Cityscapes. Our hybrid SFCNN is a valuable and interesting contribution to extending the functionality of SNNs, especially for power-constrained applications.