  Neuromorphic computing is a promising solution for reducing the size, weight
and power of mobile embedded systems. In this paper, we introduce a realization
of such a system by creating the first closed-loop battery-powered
communication system between an IBM TrueNorth NS1e and an autonomous
Android-Based Robotics platform. Using this system, we constructed a dataset of
path following behavior by manually driving the Android-Based robot along steep
mountain trails and recording video frames from the camera mounted on the robot
along with the corresponding motor commands. We used this dataset to train a
deep convolutional neural network implemented on the TrueNorth NS1e. The NS1e,
which was mounted on the robot and powered by the robot's battery, resulted in
a self-driving robot that could successfully traverse a steep mountain path in
real time. To our knowledge, this represents the first time the TrueNorth NS1e
neuromorphic chip has been embedded on a mobile platform under closed-loop
control.
