Evolving dependability

Abstract

Evolvable hardware offers much for the future of complex systems design. Evolutionary techniques not only have the potential for larger solution space coverage, but when implemented on hardware, also allow system designs to adapt to changes in the environment, including failures in system components. This article reviews a number of novel techniques, all based in the field of bio-inspired systems, that provide varying degrees of dependability over and above standard designs. In particular, three different techniques are considered: using FPGAs and ideas from developmental biology to create designs that possess emergent fault-tolerant properties, using FPGAs and continuous evolution to circumvent faults as and when they occur, and, finally, we consider a novel ASIC designed and built with bio-inspired systems in mind.