The Perplexus bio-inspired reconfigurable circuit (original) (raw)

Dynamically Reconfigurable Hardware for Evolving Bio-Inspired Architectures

Emerging Trends and Applications

During the last few years, reconfigurable computing devices have experienced an impressive development in their resource availability, speed, and configurability. Currently, commercial FPGAs offer the possibility of self-reconfiguring by partially modifying their configuration bit-string, providing high architectural flexibility, while guaranteeing high performance. On the other hand, we have bio-inspired hardware, a large research field taking inspiration from living beings in order to design hardware systems, which includes diverse approaches like evolvable hardware, neural hardware, and fuzzy hardware. Living beings are well known for their high adaptability to environmental changes, featuring very flexible adaptations at several levels. Bio-inspired hardware systems require such flexibility to be provided by the hardware platform on which the system is implemented. Even though some commercial FPGAs provide enhanced reconfigurability features such as partial and dynamic reconfigu...

Dynamically reconfigurable bio-inspired hardware

During the last several years, reconfigurable computing devices have experienced an impressive development in their resource availability, speed, and configurability. Currently, commercial FPGAs offer the possibility of self-reconfiguring by partially modifying their configuration bitstream, providing high architectural flexibility, while guaranteeing high performance. These configurability features have received special interest from computer architects: one can find several reconfigurable coprocessor architectures for cryptographic algorithms, image processing, automotive applications, and different general purpose functions. On the other hand we have bio-inspired hardware, a large research field taking inspiration from living beings in order to design hardware systems, which includes diverse topics: evolvable hardware, neural hardware, cellular automata, and fuzzy hardware, among others. Living beings are well known for their high adaptability to environmental changes, featuring very flexible adaptations at several levels. Bio-inspired hardware systems require such flexibility to be provided by the hardware platform on which the system is implemented. In general, bio-inspired hardware has been implemented on both custom and commercial hardware platforms. These custom platforms are specifically designed for supporting bio-inspired hardware systems, typically featuring special cellular architectures and enhanced reconfigurability capabilities; an example is their partial and dynamic reconfigurability. These aspects are very well appreciated for providing the performance and the high architectural flexibility required by bio-inspired systems. However, the availability and the very high costs of such custom devices make them only accessible to a very few research groups. Even though some commercial FP-GAs provide enhanced reconfigurability features such as partial and dynamic reconfiguration, their utilization is still in its early stages and they are not well supported by FPGA vendors, thus making their use difficult to include in existing bio-inspired systems. In this thesis, I present a set of architectures, techniques, and methodologies for benefiting from the configurability advantages of current commercial FPGAs in the design of bio-inspired hardware systems. Among the presented architectures there are neural networks, spiking neuron models, fuzzy systems, cellular automata and random boolean networks. For these architectures, I propose several adaptation techniques for parametric and topological adaptation, such as hebbian learning, evolutionary and co-evolutionary algorithms, and particle swarm optimization. Finally, as case study I consider the implementation of bio-inspired hardware systems in two platforms: YaMoR (Yet another Modular Robot) and ROPES (Reconfigurable Object for Pervasive Systems); the development of both platforms having been co-supervised in the framework of this thesis.

Prototyping with a bio-inspired reconfigurable chip

In this paper we explain how the POEtic chip can be used for rapid prototyping. The POEtic chip, currently in the test phase, is a system-on-chip (SoC) containing a microprocessor and a reconfigurable array. Special features allow the dynamic creation of data paths in the reconfigurable array at runtime. It has been specially designed to ease the development of bio-inspired systems such as neural networks, but can serve as a general purpose platform, or as a prototype for hardware/software codesign. An AMBA bus allows POEtic chips to be connected to each other, or to external devices. After describing the hardware SoC, we discuss the software tools that have been created to design and test different applications. Three of these applications are described in order to demonstrate the utility of the POEtic chip's special features.

Biologically-Inspired: A Rule-Based Self-Reconfiguration of a Virtex Chip

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004

To be able to evolve digital circuits with complex structure and/or complex functionality we propose an artificial development process as the genotype-phenotype mapping. To realistically evolve such circuits a hardware implementation of the development process together with high-speed reconfiguration logic for phenotype implementation is presented. The hardware implementation of the development process is a programmable reconfiguration processor. The high-speed reconfiguration logic for evaluation of the phenotype is capable of exploiting the advantage of massive parallel processing due to the cellular automata like structure.

Bio-Inspired Computing Architectures: The Embryonics Approach

Seventh International Workshop on Computer Architecture for Machine Perception (CAMP'05), 2005

The promise of next-generation computer technologies, such as nano-electronics, implies a number of serious alterations to the design flow of digital circuits. One of the most serious issues is related to circuit layout, as conventional lithographic techniques do not scale to the molecular level. A second important issue concerns fault tolerance: molecular-scale devices will be subject to fault densities that are orders of magnitude greater than silicon-based circuits. In our work, we are investigating a different approach to the design of complex computing systems, inspired by the developmental process of multi-cellular organisms in nature. This approach has led us to define a hierarchical system based on several levels of complexity, ranging from the molecule (modeled by an element of a programmable logic device when the system is applied to silicon) to the organism, defined as an applicationspecific multi-processor system. By setting aside some of the conventional circuit design priorities, namely size and (to a certain extent) performance, we are able to design fully scalable systems endowed with some properties not commonly found in digital circuits. Most notably, by exploiting a hierarchical self-repair approach, our systems are able to tolerate higher fault densities, whereas a self-replication mechanism allows our arrays of processing elements to selforganize, greatly reducing the layout complexity of the system.

Prototyping with a bio-inspired recon .gurable chip

Proceedings. 15th IEEE International Workshop on Rapid System Prototyping, 2004., 2004

1The BioWall: an Electronic Tissue for Prototyping Bio-Inspired Systems

2014

In this article, we present the BioWall, a giant reconfigurable computing tissue developed to implement machines according to the principles of our Embryonics (embryonic electronics) project. The BioWall’s size and features are designed for public exhibition, but at the same time it represents an invaluable research tool, particularly since its complete programmability and cellular structure are extremely well adapted to the implementation of many different kinds of bio-inspired systems. To illustrate these capabilities, we present a set of applications that range over many diverse sources of biological inspiration, from the ontogenetic systems, through epigenetic artificial neural networks, to phylogenetic evolving hardware. All these applications have been fully implemented and tested in hardware on the BioWall. 1

POEtic: an electronic tissue for bio-inspired cellular applications

Biosystems, 2004

In this paper, we introduce the general architecture of a new electronic tissue called POEtic. This reconfigurable circuit is designed to ease the implementation of bio-inspired systems that bring cellular applications into play. It contains special features that allow a developer to realize systems that require evolution (Phylogenesis), development (Ontogenesis), and/or learning (Epigenesis). A dynamic routing algorithm has been added to a structure similar to that of common commercial FPGAs, in order to allow the creation of data paths between cells. As the creation of these paths is dynamic, it is possible to add new cells or to repair faulty ones at runtime.

Toward robust integrated circuits: The embryonics approach

2000

The growth and operation of all living beings are directed by the interpretation, in each of their cells, of a chemical program, the DNA string or genome. This process is the source of inspiration for the Embryonics (embryonic electronics) project, whose final objective is the design of highly robust integrated circuits, endowed with properties usually associated with the living world: self-repair (cicatrization) and self-replication. The Embryonics architecture is based on four hierarchical levels of organization. 1) The basic primitive of our system is the molecule, a multiplexer-based element of a novel programmable circuit. 2) A finite set of molecules makes up a cell, essentially a small processor with an associated memory. 3) A finite set of cells makes up an organism, an application-specific multiprocessor system. 4) The organism can itself replicate, giving rise to a population of identical organisms. We begin by describing in detail the implementation of an artificial cell characterized by a fixed architecture, showing that multicellular arrays can realize a variety of different organisms, all capable of self-replication and self-repair. In order to allow for a wide range of applications, we then introduce a flexible architecture, realized using a new type of fine-grained field-programmable gate array whose basic element, our molecule, is essentially a programmable multiplexer. We describe the implementation of such a molecule, with built-in self-test, and illustrate its use in realizing two applications: a modulo-4 reversible counter (a unicellular organism) and a timer (a complex multicellular organism). Last, we describe our ongoing research efforts to meet three challenges: a scientific challenge, that of implementing the original specifications formulated by John von Neumann for the conception of a self-replicating automaton; a technical challenge, that of realizing very robust integrated circuits capable of self-repair and self-replication; and a biological challenge, that of attempting to show that the microscopic architectures of artificial and natural organisms, i.e., their genomes, share common properties.

The Perplexus bio-inspired reconfigurable circuit (original) (raw)

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