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Open-ended evolution to discover analogue circuits for beyond conventional applications

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Abstract

Analogue circuits synthesised by means of open-ended evolutionary algorithms often have unconventional designs. However, these circuits are typically highly compact, and the general nature of the evolutionary search methodology allows such designs to be used in many applications. Previous work on the evolutionary design of analogue circuits has focused on circuits that lie well within analogue application domain. In contrast, our paper considers the evolution of analogue circuits that are usually synthesised in digital logic. We have developed four computational circuits, two voltage distributor circuits and a time interval metre circuit. The approach, despite its simplicity, succeeds over the design tasks owing to the employment of substructure reuse and incremental evolution. Our findings expand the range of applications that are considered suitable for evolutionary electronics.

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Notes

  1. The procedure is similar with a well-known convergent neuron that integrates different signals from different locations into one [9] but has a backward direction depending on the distribution of signals.

  2. We regard incremental evolution as a special case of the more general “divide-and-conquer” approach, the essence of which involves decomposing the target into subtargets.

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Correspondence to Yerbol A. Sapargaliyev.

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Sapargaliyev, Y.A., Kalganova, T.G. Open-ended evolution to discover analogue circuits for beyond conventional applications. Genet Program Evolvable Mach 13, 411–443 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10710-012-9163-8

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