Real-world applications of analog and digital evolvable hardware

In contrast to conventional hardware where the structure is irreversibly fi xed in the design process, evolvable hardware (EHW) is designed to adapt to changes in task requirements or changes in the environment, through its ab ility to reconfigure its own hardware structure dynamically and autonomousl y. This capacity for adaptation, achieved by employing efficient search alg orithms based on the metaphor of evolution, has great potential for the dev elopment of innovative industrial applications. This paper introduces EHW c hips and sis applications currently being developed as part of MITI's Real- World Computing Project; an analog EHW chip for cellular phones, a clock-ti ming architecture for Giga hertz systems, a neural network EHW chip capable of autonomous reconfiguration, a data compression EHW chip for electrophot ographic printers, and a gate-level EHW chip for use in prosthetic hands an d robot navigation.