Chemical Computing Through Simulated Evolution

Abstract

Many forms of unconventional computing, i.e., massively parallel computers which exploit the non-linear material properties of their substrate, can be realised through simulated evolution. That is, the behaviour of non-linear media can be controlled automatically and the structural design of the media optimized through the nature-inspired machine learning approach. This chapter describes work using the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction as a non-linear chemical medium in which to realise computation. Firstly, aspects of the basic structure of an experi- mental chemical computer are evolved to implement two Boolean logic functions through a collision-based scheme. Secondly, a controller is evolved to dynamically affect the rich spatio-temporal chemical wave behaviour to implement three Boo- lean functions, in both simulation and experimentation.