Abstract
Memtransistors, three-terminal devices that combine the functionalities of memristors and transistors, offer a promising route for analog computing through their non-volatile behavior, low power consumption, and gate-tunable control. These features make them particularly well-suited for sensor fusion in autonomous systems. However, such tasks are typically implemented using digital Kalman filters, which suffer from high power consumption and limited real-time adaptability due to analog-to-digital conversion and iterative computation. Existing analog approaches based on memristors also fall short in handling multi-dimensional data under complex driving scenarios. To overcome these challenges, an analog multi-stage Kalman filtering system integrated with MoS2 memtransistors is presented, designed for multi-dimensional sensor data in autonomous driving. The three-terminal memtransistor enables multi-level conductance (1024) and excellent electrostatic control. This ensures a wide modulation range (>103) and exceptional linearity (R2 = 0.997) for Kalman gain (K), facilitating robust adaptation to complex driving conditions. The proposed system effectively handles sensor obstructions while achieving a 13-fold reduction in power consumption and a 59-fold decrease in latency compared to conventional digital circuits. These results demonstrate the potential of memtransistor-based analog computing for real-time, energy-efficient sensor fusion in next-generation autonomous systems.
Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to the fact that this study forming part of an ongoing research program but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Wang, L. et al. Multi-modal 3d object detection in autonomous driving: a survey and taxonomy. IEEE Trans. Intell. Veh. 8, 3781–3798 (2023).
López, A., Ogayar, C. J., Jurado, J. M. & Feito, F. R. Metaheuristics for the optimization of Terrestrial LiDAR set-up. Autom. Constr. 146, 104675 (2023).
Zhang, W., Wang, P., He, N. & He, Z. Super resolution DOA based on relative motion for FMCW automotive radar. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol. 69, 8698–8709 (2020).
Höflinger, F., Müller, J., Zhang, R., Reindl, L. M. & Burgard, W. A wireless micro inertial measurement unit (IMU). IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas. 62, 2583–2595 (2013).
MahmoudZadeh, S. et al. Holistic review of UAV-centric situational awareness: applications, limitations, and algorithmic challenges. Robotics 13, 117 (2024).
Yeong, D. J., Velasco-Hernandez, G., Barry, J. & Walsh, J. Sensor and sensor fusion technology in autonomous vehicles: a review. Sensors 21, 2140 (2021).
Butt, F. A. et al. On the integration of enabling wireless technologies and sensor fusion for next-generation connected and autonomous vehicles. IEEE Access 10, 14643–14668 (2022).
Abdelkader, G., Elgazzar, K. & Khamis, A. Connected vehicles: technology review, state of the art, challenges and opportunities. Sensors 21, 7712 (2021).
Zhao, W. et al. Real-time vehicle motion detection and motion altering for connected vehicle: algorithm design and practical applications. Sensors 19, 4108 (2019).
Bocu, R., Bocu, D. & Iavich, M. Objects detection using sensors data fusion in autonomous driving scenarios. Electronics 10, 2903 (2021).
Senel, N., Kefferpütz, K., Doycheva, K. & Elger, G. Multi-sensor data fusion for real-time multi-object tracking. Processes 11, 501 (2023).
Assa, A. & Janabi-Sharifi, F. A Kalman filter-based framework for enhanced sensor fusion. IEEE Sens. J. 15, 3281–3292 (2015).
Montañez, O. J., Suarez, M. J. & Fernandez, E. A. Application of data sensor fusion using extended kalman filter algorithm for identification and tracking of moving targets from LiDAR–radar data. Remote Sens 15, 3396 (2023).
Kalman, R. E. A new approach to linear filtering and prediction problems. J. Basic Eng. 82, 35–45 (1960).
Farag, W. Kalman-filter-based sensor fusion applied to road-objects detection and tracking for autonomous vehicles. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part I J. Syst. Control Eng. 235, 1125–1138 (2021).
Rehman, S., Khan, M. F., Kim, H.-D. & Kim, S. Analog–digital hybrid computing with SnS2 memtransistor for low-powered sensor fusion. Nat. Commun. 13, 2804 (2022).
Tan, T. et al. Integration of MoS2 memtransistor devices and analogue circuits for sensor fusion in autonomous vehicle target localization. ACS Nano 18, 13652–13661 (2024).
Chen, B. et al. A memristor-based hybrid analog-digital computing platform for mobile robotics. Sci. Rob. 5, eabb6938 (2020).
Sangwan, V. K. et al. Multi-terminal memtransistors from polycrystalline monolayer molybdenum disulfide. Nature 554, 500–504 (2018).
Yan, X., Qian, J. H., Sangwan, V. K. & Hersam, M. C. Progress and challenges for memtransistors in neuromorphic circuits and systems. Adv. Mater. 34, 2108025 (2022).
Feng, X. et al. Self-selective multi-terminal memtransistor crossbar array for in-memory computing. ACS Nano 15, 1764–1774 (2021).
Lee, C. et al. Anomalous lattice vibrations of single-and few-layer MoS2. ACS Nano 4, 2695–2700 (2010).
Siao, M. et al. Two-dimensional electronic transport and surface electron accumulation in MoS2. Nat. Commun. 9, 1442 (2018).
Fang, N. & Nagashio, K. Accumulation-mode two-dimensional field-effect transistor: operation mechanism and thickness scaling rule. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 10, 32355–32364 (2018).
Hwang, P. & Brown, R. G. Introduction to Random signals and Applied Kalman Filtering with MATLAB exercises and Solutions, 3rd edn (Wiley, New York, 1997).
Chao, X., Jun, X., Zhizhu, L. & Zhu, L. Vehicle longitudinal speed estimation based on Kalman filter. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Computer Applications (ICAICA), 718–721 (IEEE, 2020).
Yu, H. et al. DAIR-V2X: a large-scale dataset for vehicle–infrastructure cooperative 3D object detection. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 21361–21370 (2022).
Wang, H. et al. DAIR-V2XReid: a new real-world vehicle-infrastructure cooperative re-id dataset and cross-shot feature aggregation network perception method. IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst. 25, 9058–9068 (2024).
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 62304132 and 62174074), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Grant No. 25JD1402100), the Shenzhen Fundamental Research Program (Grant No. JCYJ20220530115014032), the Zhujiang Young Talent Program (Grant No. 2021QN02X362), the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education Innovation Team Program (Grant No. 2021KCXTD012), SME-CIMCube Joint Lab, and the Guangdong Provincial Engineering Research Center of 3-D Integration. The funders played no role in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, or the writing of this manuscript. We would like to acknowledge the Center for Advanced Electronic Materials and Devices (AEMD) of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Core Research Facilities (CRF) at Southern University of Science and Technology for the facilities used and the technical support provided by their staff and engineers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
X.F. and T.T. conceived and designed the experiments. T.T. and H.G. performed the device fabrication and electrical measurements. T.T, H.G, S.W., Y.W., Y.L and X.F. contributed to the discussion and results analysis. T.T. and X.F. wrote the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Tan, T., Guo, H., Wang, S. et al. Multi-stage Kalman filtering system for sensor fusion integrated with MoS2 memtransistor featuring 1024 conductance levels. npj 2D Mater Appl (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41699-026-00672-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41699-026-00672-7