Address-Event Representation

Address-Event Representation (AER) is an abstract data format used to describe discrete events using coordinates in space-time. AER is useful when working with sparse temporal data where most entries are zeros and can be ignored, and is closely related to coordinate-based representations of tensors and matrices. It is the default standard for neuromorphic sensors, such as event cameras.

Example
In AER, an event is represented by its address as a tuple, such as:

$\text{Time} \times \text{Space} \times \text{Data}$

Event cameras that captures the positive or negative electrical polarity of photons in a 2-dimensional sensor array, uses the following AER representation

$\text{Time} \times \text{X} \times \text{Y} \times \text{Polarity}$

Background
The representation was initially designed by Misha Mahowald and Carver Mead to ``provide high-bandwidth communication among large arrays of neurons''.