Jun 2026· arXiv.org· Vol abs/2606.20151· 0 citations· 18 references
Computer Science
TL;DR
A hybrid ANN-SNN pipeline that effectively leverages the rich embeddings of pretrained artificial neural networks to enable high-performance spiking neural networks (SNNs) and achieves performance on par with conventional deep networks.
Abstract
This work proposes a hybrid ANN-SNN pipeline that effectively leverages the rich embeddings of pretrained artificial neural networks (ANNs) to enable high-performance spiking neural networks (SNNs). The architecture couples a pretrained EfficientNet encoder with a CoLaNET spiking classifier. We convert the encoder's activations into spike trains via rate-coding and train the subsequent SNN classifier using local, biologically inspired learning rules, bypassing end-to-end gradient propagation. This approach achieves 99.09% accuracy on a 64-class ImageNet benchmark, demonstrating performance on par with conventional deep networks. The work presents a biologically plausible and efficient framework for adapting powerful pretrained encoders to downstream spiking neural network tasks.
Adaptive Fission is proposed, a post-training encoding technique that selectively splits high-sensitivity neurons into groups with varying scales and weights that enables neuron-specific, on-demand precision and threshold allocation while introducing minimal spatial overhead.
Yizhou Jiang, Feng Chen, Yihan Li et al.· Neural Information Processin...· 2 citations
A Spiking Neural Network (SNN) is a kind of brain-inspired and event-driven network, which is becoming a promising energy-efficient alternative to Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). In recent years, SNN methods have been successfully applied in the fields of electromagnetic signal processing and image signal processing, particularly in application scenarios that require low energy consumption. However, the performance of SNNs by direct training is far from satisfactory. In this paper, we study a novel learning method named SAD-SNN (Spatial-Activation Distillation for Spiking Neural Networks), which utilizes the ANN model to guide the SNN model learning. Unlike prior works that rely on element-wise feature alignment approaches, SAD-SNN aligns spatial-activation maps at different resolutions of the teacher and student networks. Specifically, we introduce a direct alignment approach, which defines a spatial-activation loss and normalizes the representation vectors of ANN and SNN, to alleviate the unexpected precision loss. This enables the knowledge of teacher ANNs to be effectively transferred to train student SNNs. On three image classification datasets, our proposed SAD-SNN outperforms other SNN training methods no matter whether homogeneous or heterogeneous teacher ANNs are used. Furthermore, we apply SAD-SNN to the electromagnetic signal detection task, demonstrating strong generalization ability and superior performance. In conclusion, the experimental results on various tasks and SNN architectures demonstrate that our method is a general and effective solution that significantly improves the learning of student SNNs with only two time steps.
Chongxiao Qu, Qian Zhang, Chenxiao Dou et al.· Italian National Conference...· 0 citations
Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) enable event-driven computation with sparse activations, but building multimodal Transformers on SNNs is hindered by unstable training in deep spiking stacks and the mismatch between dense softmax attention and spike-based communication. We propose SMM Transformer, an SNN-based multimodal Transformer framework that combines (i)PLMP, a Parallel LIF with Multistage Learnable Parameters neuron and a tailored P-STBP algorithm for stable deep SNN training, (ii) SMSA, an attention-inspired spike-driven token-mixing module that replaces dense pairwise softmax attention with channel-wise spike co-activation and self-compensation, and (iii)SMoE, a spiking mixture-of-experts module for modality-aware fusion. Across visual and multimodal benchmarks, SMM Transformer achieves competitive accuracy compared to ANN baselines. Under a standard MAC/AC arithmetic model, SMSA reduces the estimated operator-level compute energy of the attention module by up to 97%, while whole-model profiling shows more moderate but consistent efficiency gains.
Xiubo Liang, Jinxing Han, Yuke Li et al.· 0 citations
This work analyzes flaws of conventional conversion pipelines from residual membrane potential statistics and proposes a novel conversion strategy combining dynamic initial potential tuning and feature enhancement, which generalizes to ReLU CNNs, ANN Transformers, and multi-threshold SNN variants.
Zirui Chen, Zihan Huang, Tong Bu et al.· 0 citations
This work proposes Burst Spiking Neural Networks (BuSNNs), built upon Burst-enhanced Spiking Neurons and a Dynamic Weight Constraint (DWC) mechanism, which mitigates perturbation-induced transitions in activation states and thereby enhances robustness.
Jiahong Zhang, Sijun Shen, Man Yao et al.· 0 citations
It is aimed at proving that SNNs have potential in such areas as computer vision, robotics, and speech recognition, and their role in overcoming the barrier between artificial and biological neural systems is proved.
Mesala Sravani, K. Kumari, S. M. Reddy· International Journal of Unc...· 0 citations
