# Efficient Perception in Automotive Detection and Tracking Using Neuromorphic Computing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.04921 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.04921/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [BDD100K: A Diverse Driving Dataset for Heterogeneous Multitask Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04687/) (2018)
- [ByteTrack: Multi-Object Tracking by Associating Every Detection Box](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06864/) (2021)
- [Surrogate Gradient Learning in Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.09948/) (2019)
- [HOTA: A Higher Order Metric for Evaluating Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.07736/) (2020)
- [Generalized Focal Loss: Learning Qualified and Distributed Bounding Boxes for Dense Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04388/) (2020)
- [Spatio-Temporal Backpropagation for Training High-performance Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02609/) (2017)
- [BoT-SORT: Robust Associations Multi-Pedestrian Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14651/) (2022)
- [Training Deep Spiking Neural Networks using Backpropagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.08782/) (2016)
- [A Survey of Neuromorphic Computing and Neural Networks in Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.06963/) (2017)
- [Integer-Valued Training and Spike-Driven Inference Spiking Neural Network for High-performance and Energy-efficient Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.20708/) (2024)
- [Memory and information processing in neuromorphic systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.03264/) (2015)
- [YOLOPv2: Better, Faster, Stronger for Panoptic Driving Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.11434/) (2022)
- [An STDP-Based Supervised Learning Algorithm for Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.03379/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep learning algorithms are notorious for their high carbon footprint and computational demands that limit their deployment on edge devices and raise concerns about their long-term sustainability. Neuromorphic computing and Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) offer a promising alternative to traditional Von Neumann architectures, providing energy-efficient performance, massively parallel computation, and on-chip learning capabilities. Autonomous machines represent a critical application domain where these advantages are particularly valuable. We present the first comprehensive evaluation of SNNs for real-world automotive multi-object detection and tracking. Using transfer learning with the SpikeYOLO architecture, we achieve mean Average Precision of 0.937 on the KITTI dataset and 0.771 on BDD100K MOT2020 dataset for object detection and a Higher Order Tracking Accuracy score of 0.701 (KITTI) and 0.445 (BDD100K MOT2020) for object tracking--results competitive with conventional deep learning methods. Our results demonstrate that SNNs can deliver high-performance object detection and tracking in an energy efficient manner, establishing their viability for perception in real-world autonomous systems.