The CAM-Brain Machine (CBM): An FPGA Based Tool for Evolving a 75 Million Neuron Artificial Brain to Control a Lifesized Kitten Robot

This article introduces the “CAM-Brain Machine” (CBM), an FPGA based piece of hardware which implements a genetic algorithm (GA) to evolve a cellular automata (CA) based neural network circuit module, of approximately 1,000 neurons, in about a second, i.e., a complete run of a GA, with 10,000s of circuit growths and performance evaluations. Up to 65,000 of these modules, each of which is evolved with a humanly specified function, can be downloaded into a large RAM space, and interconnected according to humanly specified artificial brain architectures. This RAM, containing an artificial brain with up to 75 million neurons, is then updated by the CBM at a rate of 130 billion CA cells per second. Such speeds should enable real time control of robots and hopefully the birth of a new research field that we call “brain building.” The first such artificial brain, to be built in 2000 and beyond, will be used to control the behaviors of a life sized robotkitten called “Robokitty.”