Bluehive and OSB interactions

-----------------------------

Discussion of the options for running models from OSB (and any other models expressed in LEMS/NeuroML2) on the Bluehive hardware being developed in Cambridge.

Some of these points may be applicable to other FPGA based simulator systems.

### Overview of Bluehive system

Information on the current status of the Bluehive system can be found in presentations by Steve Marsh ([PDF](http://www.opensourcebrain.org/attachments/download/70/SteveMarsh_HiveMind_Overview_13_5_13.pdf)) and Paul Fox ([PPT](http://www.opensourcebrain.org/attachments/download/74/Thousands-to-millions_PaulFox.ppt)) at the [2013 OSB kickoff meeting](http://www.opensourcebrain.org/projects/osb/wiki/Meetings)

More information…

### Potential OSB models to test on Bluehive hardware

Some of the potential models on OSB which could be tried out on Bluehive include:

-   project:brunel2000

-   project:destexhe\_jcns\_2009

     (Note these are both PyNN based networks, which could potentiall be scaled up by changing the population size parameters)

-   project:grancelllayer

     (This is a neuroConstruct based project containing a network of single compartment conductance based neurons. The [Large 3D network](http://www.opensourcebrain.org/embedded/grancelllayer/Large3DNetwork.html) simulation configuration could be used for testing on Bluehive, but would require more testing of the ChannelML ~~\> NeuroML2~~\> LEMS -\> Other formats pathway)

Note that a Google Summer of Code project for the INCF will start soon when a student will be specifically looking at converting large scale cortical models to NeuroML/PyNN and putting them on OSB: http://www.incf.org/gsoc/2013, http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/project/google/gsoc2013/vitorchaud/14001.

These networks will be exactly the type needed for testing with Bluehive and comparing to other simulators.

More…

### Libraries which can be used for code generation, testing, etc.

[PyLEMS](https://github.com/LEMS/pylems)

Extended [org.neuroml.export package](https://github.com/NeuroML/org.neuroml.export/tree/master/src/main/java/org/neuroml/export) which exports [VFGEN](http://www.warrenweckesser.net/vfgen/index.html) format, to generate C/C++…

### Meetings

A meeting will take place in Cambridge on Monday 22nd July to discuss this work and future directions.

### Other simulator systems based on FPGA

Please add comments if you know anything about the state of these systems (but be nice, it’s public!).

[A Large-Scale Spiking Neural Network Accelerator for FPGA Systems Systems](http://www.async.org.uk/nerh2012/nerh2012_submission_2.pdf)

Kit Cheung, Simon R. Schultz, Wayne Luk, Imperial College London

[A Biologically Plausible Real-time Spiking Neuron Simulation Environment Based on a Multiple-FPGA Platform](http://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=2082176&ftid=1071641&dwn=1&CFID=223379110&CFTOKEN=73391392)

Shufan Yang, TM McGinnity, University of Ulster

[An FPGA-based approach to high-speed simulation of conductance-based neuron models](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1385%2FNI%3A2%3A4%3A417)

E. L. Graas, E. A. Brown, Robert H. Lee, Emory University/Georgia Institute of Technology