Intrinsic Evolvable Hardware Structures

The main target of this chapter is to present the intrinsic evolvable hardware structures: concept, design and applications. The intrinsic evolvable hardware structures concept join more research areas like: bio–inspired searching methods (evolutionary algorithms), optimization of algorithms by parallel processing and reconfigurable circuits. First, a general overview about intrinsic evolvable hardware structure is presented. The intrinsic evolvable hardware structure consists of two main modules: hardware genetic algorithm and dynamic reconfigurable circuit. The hardware genetic algorithm searches the configuration that makes the reconfigurable circuit to correctly respond to application requirements. The background section present the genetic algorithm concept as a bio-inspired search solution, the hardware reconfiguration concept with sub areas classifications and the research directions in the evolvable hardware structures areas with application examples. The main section presents the design solutions for hardware implementation of genetic algorithm and for the reconfigurable circuit. Finally, several applications are presented that illustrate the usefulness of the intrinsic evolvable hardware structure.