A Novel Hardware-Efficient Cochlea Model based on Asynchronous Cellular Automaton Dynamics: Two-Tone Suppression and FPGA Implementation

In this paper, a novel cochlea model based on the nonlinear dynamics of an asynchronous cellular automaton is presented. It is shown that the presented model has frequency selectivity with respect to a single-tone sound stimulation. Furthermore, it is shown that the presented model exhibits two-tone suppression, which is one of the most typical nonlinear responses of biological cochleae. In addition, the presented model is implemented in a field programmable gate array. It is shown that the presented model can be implemented by fewer hardware resources and lower power compared to a typical differential equation cochlea model.