Adrian Thompson

Contact:

Department of Informatics,
University of Sussex,
Brighton,
BN1 9QH
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678484
FAX: +44 (0)1273 877873
     : adrianth@
email: sussex.ac.uk

I'm mainly interested in the use of `soft' computing techniques, such as neural networks and genetic algorithms, in engineering design. The main focus of this has been evolutionary algorithms to design microelectronic circuits and potentially nano-electronics. I have investigated the direct evolutionary design of deliberately unusual circuits with various interesting properties, and more recently the use of evolutionary methods to optimise activities within the flow of industrial Electronics Design Automation (EDA) tools. My other interests include: the physics of computation, reconfigurable computing, unusual computing architectures in general, VLSI CAD, evolutionary theory, neuroscience, nonlinear dynamics and complex systems theory, intelligence in animals and machines, and AI techniques in music.

Evolutionary Electronics

There are many potential applications for evolutionary algorithms in electronics, such as optimisation of parameter values or component placement & routing, test pattern generation, and even in the design process itself.

The focus of my own work has been to ask "What can evolutionary design do that conventional methods can't?" rather than trying to compete with conventional design or automate it. The papers below share this theme. Evolved circuits can have a richer spatial structure and internal dynamics than normally envisaged, and can extract unusual leverage from the physics of their medium of implementation --- be that microelectronics in simulation, physical silicon reconfigurable chips (FPGAs), or even proposed future technologies for nano-scale systems. Similarly, evolution can tune highly complex optimisation activities within Electronics Design Automation (EDA) tools with similar subtelty.

LINKS PAGE: Click here for more information on evolutionary electronics, both at Sussex and elsewhere.

Popular Articles

Publications

• Hardware Evolution: Automatic design of electronic circuits in reconfigurable hardware by artificial evolution.
  This is my doctoral thesis, written in late 1996, available in book form under Springer's distinguished dissertations series. It can be ordered direct from Springer, or from any bookseller including those on-line.
  Full reference, Springer's description, a review (look on p7 of this pdf file).

 
• UK Patent Application 'logic optimisation'. 2005
  Evolutionary algorithms used to develop a diverse suite of specialised optimisation scripts/scenarios that allow a logic optimisation tool such as Berkeley SIS to perform significantly better, at no extra cost, and without making changes to the optimisation software itself. Technical information is available below, and full papers are in preparation.
  Full reference, plain English briefing, legal text, legal figures.

 
• Scrubbing away transients and jiggling around the permanent: Long survival of FPGA systems through evolutionary self-repair. 10th IEEE Int. On-Line Testing Symposium 2004.
  Errata: The value of H used for repair simulations was 32, not 8. In equation 2, k=i-1.
  Full reference, acrobat pdf.

 
• Evolution of combinational and sequential on-line self-diagnosing hardware. 5th NASA/DoD Workshop on Evolvable Hardware 2003.
  Full reference, acrobat pdf.

 
• Evolution of self-diagnosing hardware. 5th Int. Conf. on Evolvable Systems 2003.
  Errata: In Fig. 1, the inputs to gate 8 should be B and Cin, and the caption should read "(b) full on-line solution with 4 extra gates."
  Full reference, acrobat pdf.

 
• Notes on design through artificial evolution: Opportunities and algorithms. Adaptive computing in design and manufacture V, 2002 (plenary paper).
  Full reference, acrobat pdf, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Design of single-electron systems through artificial evolution. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2000.
  Full reference, acrobat pdf, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Evolutionary design of single electron systems. 2nd NASA/DoD workshop on evolvable hardware 2000.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Evolution of Robustness in an Electronics Design. 3rd Int. Conf. on Evolvable Systems, (c) Springer Verlag 2000.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Explorations in Design Space: Unconventional electronics design through artificial evolution. IEEE Trans. Evol. Comp. 2000.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Analysis of Unconventional Evolved Electronics. Communications of the ACM 1999.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Evolutionary Design for Novel Technologies. IEE Colloq. Evolutionary Hardware Systems 1999.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• On the Automatic Design of Robust Electronics Through Artificial Evolution. 2nd Int. Conf. on Evolvable Systems, (c) Springer Verlag 1998.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Exploring Beyond the Scope of Human Design: Automatic generation of FPGA configurations through artificial evolution. 8th Annual Advanced PLD & FPGA Conference 1998.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Temperature in Natural and Artificial Systems. 4th Eur. Conf. on Artificial Life 1997.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Artificial Evolution in the Physical World. Evolutionary Robotics: From Intelligent Robots to Artificial Life 1997.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• An evolved circuit,
  intrinsic in silicon,
  entwined with physics.
  1st Int. Conf. on Evolvable Systems 1996, (c) Springer Verlag 1997.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Through the Labyrinth
  Evolution Finds a Way:
  A Silicon Ridge.
  1st Int. Conf. on Evolvable Systems 1996, (c) Springer Verlag 1997.
  Full reference, compressed postscript, or postscript.
  MPEG movie (1.4MB) : an animated version of Figure 5a.

 
• Silicon Evolution. Genetic Programming 1996.
  Full reference, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Evolutionary Techniques for Fault Tolerance Proc. UKACC Int. Conf. on Control 1996.
  Full reference, compressed postscript, or postscript.



A journal version of the above material is available as Evolving Inherently Fault-Tolerant Systems, Proc Instn Mech Engrs 1997. Full reference.


Click here for a correction to a small technical error appearing in these two papers.
 

• Unconstrained Evolution and Hard Consequences. Towards Evolvable Hardware workshop 1996.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• A shortened version, The Natural Way to Evolve Hardware, (4 pages long instead of 30) is available: IEEE Int. Symp. on Circuits and Systems 1996.
  Full reference, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• For the ultimate in brevity, here's the poster: poster1.ps, poster2.ps

 
• Evolutionary Robotics at Sussex. Int. Symp. Robotics & Manufacturing, World Automation Conf. 1996.
  Full reference, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Evolving fault tolerant systems. 1st IEE/IEEE Conf. on Genetic Algorithms in Engineering Systems 1995.
  Full reference, compressed postscript, or postscript.

 
• Evolving electronic robot controllers that exploit hardware resources. 3rd Eur. Conf. on Artificial Life 1995.
  Full reference, read as html, compressed postscript, or postscript.
  Technical electronics details here.