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Resurrecting FPGA Intrinsic Analog Evolvable Hardware

Publication: Artificial Life Conference Proceedings 33, 2021
Date: July 19, 2021
EHW Association: Early EHW Work

Abstract

In the spirit of past century evolvable hardware, we ex plore the application of evolutionary algorithms to field programmable gate arrays and provide an open-source platform for performing intrinsic analog evolvable hardware experiments. We target the reproduction of seminal field experiments that generated complex analog dynamics of unclocked FPGAs which were evolved through genetic manipulation of their binary circuit representation: the bitstream. Further, we demonstrate the intrinsic evolution of two non-trivial analog circuits with intriguing properties: amplitude maximization and pulse oscillation. Lastly, we explore the robustness of evolved circuits to temperature variation and across-chip circuit translation.

Suggested Citation

Derek Whitley, Jason Yoder, Nicklas Carpenter; July 18–22, 2021. "Resurrecting FPGA Intrinsic Analog Evolvable Hardware." Proceedings of the ALIFE 2021: The 2021 Conference on Artificial Life. ALIFE 2021: The 2021 Conference on Artificial Life. Online. (pp. 106). ASME. https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00448

Authors

  • Derek Whitley
  • Jason Yoder
  • Nicklas Carpenter
  • Bitstream Evolution

    This paper documents the conceptual origin of the Bitstream Evolution project.