Bitstream Evolution’s Architecture

Bitstream Evolution’s Architecture#

The original code was designed in a vaguely class-like structure to prove the concept, but once proven it became very challenging to change the code and coordinate those changes, even in a small group. Thus, we created the following general architecture to make the code more modular and easy to edit and use for a broader range of applications.

Overview#

BitstreamEvolution uses a protocol-based architecture: every major component is defined as a Python Protocol class in BitstreamEvolutionProtocols.py, so that implementations can be swapped without changing the orchestration code. The main loop (Evolution.py) wires these components together.

The data flow through a single generation looks like this:

  1. A GenDataFactory produces or increments the generation metadata and decides when to stop.

  2. A CircuitFactory converts the Population of Individual objects into Circuit objects ready for hardware.

  3. A GenerateMeasurements strategy creates Measurement objects — one per Circuit — describing what to measure.

  4. The Hardware interface compiles each Circuit (icepack / iceprog), uploads it to an FPGA, and fills the Measurement with raw data (waveform samples or pulse counts).

  5. An EvaluatePopulationFitness evaluator interprets the raw measurements and assigns Fitness values to each Individual.

  6. A Reproducer performs selection and mutation to produce the next generation’s Population.

For a working end-to-end example that exercises this entire pipeline with integer-valued circuits (no hardware required), see TrivialImplementation.py.

General Structure#

Below is the best current description of our architecture. It is currently pretty in-line with the initial proposal.

        flowchart TD
    A([Run Evolution]) --> B["Generate Initial Population"]
    B -->|"Population + Gen. Info"| C["Evolution Generation Info Incrementer"]
    C -->|"None returned"| X([Exit])
    C -->|"Population + New Gen. Info"| D["Generate Measurements"]
    D -->|"Gen. Info + List Of Measurements"| E["Evaluate Measurements"]
    E -->|"Gen. Info + List Of Measurements"| F["Evaluate Fitnesses"]
    D -->|"Population"| F
    F -->|"Gen. Info + Population w/ fitness"| G["Reproduce"]
    G -->|"Gen. Info + New Population"| C

Initial Proposal#

The current architecture is based almost entirely on the initial proposal. The archived proposal is a useful reference for the overall design intent, but it is a snapshot — any changes or refinements made during implementation are not reflected there. Those differences will be documented here on this page instead.

Initial Proposal

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