Evolutionary circuit design: Tutorial

Summary form only given. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are population-based search algorithms that have been successfully applied to solve hard optimization problems in many application domains. Since the early 1990's researchers have begun to apply evolutionary algorithms to synthesize electronic circuits. Nowadays it is evident that the evolutionary design approach can automatically create efficient electronic circuits in many domains. In this tutorial, fundamental concepts of evolutionary design of digital circuits are presented. In particular, the tutorial deals with Cartesian Genetic Programming (CGP)-a method of genetic programming that in many cases outperforms conventional synthesis tools in terms of achievable circuit size reduction. Innovative designs will be presented in domains of small combinational circuits (where the goal is to minimize the number of gates), middle-size circuits (such as image filters intended for FPGAs where the goal is to obtain the quality of filtering of conventional methods for a significantly lower cost on a chip) and large circuits (such as benchmark circuits for comparison of testability analysis methods), covering thus circuit complexity from a few gates to millions of gates. For example, one of evolved image filters is now protected by utility model in the Czech Republic (patent pending). Evolved circuits will be compared with the best-known conventional designs. We will also show how to deal with the so-called scalability problems of evolutionary design which have been identified as the most important problems from the point of view of practical applications. In summary, tutorial participants will become familiar with the state of the art methods in the area of digital circuit evolution. They will learn how to apply CGP, construct the fitness function and run experiments. Lukas Sekanina received all his degrees from Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic (MSc in 1999 and PhD in 2002). He was awarded the Fulbright scholarship and worked on the evolutionary circuit design with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena in 2004. He was a visiting lecturer with Pennsylvania State University and visiting researcher with University of Oslo in 2001. Selected awards: Silver medal (2008), Merit Award (2004) and Honorable Mention (2005) in Human-competitive awards in genetic and evolutionary computation at GECCO, Siemens Award for outstanding PhD thesis in 2003, Siemens Award for outstanding book in 2005. Lukas has served as a program committee member of 10 international conferences and as editorial board member of Int. Journal of Innovative Computing and Applications. He co-authored more than 80 papers mainly on evolvable hardware, with over 400 citations. Currently, he is associate professor with the Faculty of Information Technology, Brno University of Technology. His research interests include evolutionary design and evolvable hardware.