Hardware Evolution

1. Introduction. - 1. 1 Topic. - 1. 2 Hardware Evolution. - 1. 3 Motivation. - 1. 4 The Thesis. - 2. Context. - 2. 1 Inspiration. - 2. 2 Evolutionary Algorithms for Electronic Design: Other approaches. - 2. 3 Multi-Criteria EAs: Area Power Speed and Testability. - 2. 4 A Philosophy of Artificial Evolutionx. - 2. 5 The Position of this Book Within the Field. - 3. Unconstrained Structure and Dynamics. - 3. 1 The Relationship Between Intrinsic Hardware Evolution and Conventional Design Techniques. - 3. 2 Unconstrained Structure. - 3. 3 Unconstrained Dynamics. - 3. 4 The Relationship Between Intrinsic Hardware Evolution and Natural Evolution. - 4. Parsimony and Fault Tolerance. - 4. 1 Insensitivity to Genetic Mutations. - 4. 2 Engineering Consequences of Mutation-Insensitivity. - 4. 3 Explicitly Specifying Fault-Tolerance Requirements. - 4. 4 Adaptation to Faults. - 4. 5 Fault Tolerance Through Redundancy. - 4. 6 Summary. - 5. Demonstration. - 5. 1 The Experiment. - 5. 2 Results. - 5. 3 Analysis. - 5. 4 Interpretation. - 6. Future Work. - 6. 1 Engineering Tolerances. - 6. 2 Applications. - 7. Conclusion. - Appendix A. Circuit Diagram of the DSM Evolvable Hardware Robot Controller. - Appendix B. Details of the Simulations used in the Mr Chips' Robot Experiment. - B. 1 The Motor Model. - B. 2 The Movement Model. - B. 3 The Sonar Model. - References. Language: English