http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianth/ade.html

Adrian Thompson
Contact:

COGS,
University of Sussex,
Brighton,
BN1 9QH
UK

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

I'm faculty of the School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences (COGS) and an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow. I'm associated with the Evolutionary & Adaptive Systems group (here), the Cente for Computational Neuroscience & Robotics (here), and the Centre for The Study of Evolution (here).

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, more recently, nano-electronics. 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
is the use of evolutionary algorithms in the design of electronic systems. Evolutionary algorithms capture the bare essentials of Darwinian evolution - selection acting repeatedly upon heritable variation - but are in other ways very different from evolution in nature.

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.

LINKS PAGE: Click here for more information on evolutionary electronics, both at Sussex and elsewhere.
Popular Articles
These were written by other people, and I don't necessarily agree with them!
New Scientist cover story 15th November 1997.
Discover Magazine cover story. Cut down version here.
Publications
Keywords: Evolutionary electronics, evolutionary robotics, single-electron circuit design, fault tolerance, physics of computation, artificial evolution, evolutionary computation, genetic algorithms ( GA ), artificial life ( ALife ), design automation.

* 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).

* 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.

o 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.

o 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.

Having problems viewing the files?

Academic references?! But what I really want to see is a portrayal of Mr Tickle interloping into the mind of M. C. Escher, courtesy of the esteemed Dr P. A. Cairns! Back to Evolutionary Electronics at Sussex