Noise Adaptor in Spiking Neural Networks

Recent strides in low-latency spiking neural network (SNN) algorithms have drawn significant interest, particularly due to their event-driven computing nature and fast inference capability. One of the most efficient ways to construct a low-latency SNN is by converting a pre-trained, low-bit artificial neural network (ANN) into an SNN. However, this conversion process faces two main challenges: First, converting SNNs from low-bit ANNs can lead to ``occasional noise" -- the phenomenon where occasional spikes are generated in spiking neurons where they should not be -- during inference, which significantly lowers SNN accuracy. Second, although low-latency SNNs initially show fast improvements in accuracy with time steps, these accuracy growths soon plateau, resulting in their peak accuracy lagging behind both full-precision ANNs and traditional ``long-latency SNNs'' that prioritize precision over speed. In response to these two challenges, this paper introduces a novel technique named ``noise adaptor.'' Noise adaptor can model occasional noise during training and implicitly optimize SNN accuracy, particularly at high simulation times $T$. Our research utilizes the ResNet model for a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the noise adaptor on low-latency SNNs. The results demonstrate that our method outperforms the previously reported quant-ANN-to-SNN conversion technique. We achieved an accuracy of 95.95\% within 4 time steps on CIFAR-10 using ResNet-18, and an accuracy of 74.37\% within 64 time steps on ImageNet using ResNet-50. Remarkably, these results were obtained without resorting to any noise correction methods during SNN inference, such as negative spikes or two-stage SNN simulations. Our approach significantly boosts the peak accuracy of low-latency SNNs, bringing them on par with the accuracy of full-precision ANNs. Code will be open source.