Reaction-diffusion computers / Andy Adamatzky, Ben De Lacy Costello, Tetsuya Asai.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adamatzky, Andrew.

Contributor:

De Lacy Costello, Ben.

Asai, Tetsuya.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reaction mechanisms (Chemistry)--Data processing.

Reaction mechanisms (Chemistry).

Chemical systems--Information technology.

Chemical systems.

Reaction-diffusion equations--Data processing.

Reaction-diffusion equations.

Systems engineering.

Information technology.

Physical Description:

xiv, 334 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Boston : Elsevier, 2005.

Summary:

Join the authors on a journey where they describe the possibility of computers composed of nothing more than chemicals. Unlikely as it sounds, the book introduces the topic of 'reaction-diffusion computing', a topic which in time could revolutionise computing and robotics.

Rather than a theoretical treatise, the book is crammed with practical examples and colourful images encompassing over ten years of work in this field. The authors are serious about their science but this doesn't stop them having fun illustrating the potential of their ideas and thus the book should appeal to a wide audience. Within the pages readers will find amongst other things robots who carry their own 'chemical brains' and computers that operate via the collision of 'chemical bullets'.

Dovetailed perfectly with the practical chemical approach is the use of the reaction-diffusion dynamics of chemical and natural systems to design new types of parallel silicon chips. A multitude of these nature-inspired chips and their production methods are described.

Contents:

1 Non-linear chemistry meets non-classical computation 1

1.1 What is a chemical processor? 2

1.2 Overview of chemical processors 7

1.3 Other chemical systems 22

1.4 Current state of reaction-diffusion processors 25

2 Geometrical computation: Voronoi diagram and skeleton 31

2.1 Voronoi diagram 31

2.2 Time-to-space mapping 33

2.3 Cellular-automaton Voronoi diagram 34

2.4 Chemical processors for Voronoi-diagram computation 41

2.5 Voronoi diagrams in chemical processors 43

2.6 When computations go wrong! 50

2.7 Unstable processors 52

2.8 Secondary Voronoi diagrams 57

2.9 Controllability of secondary Voronoi diagrams 61

2.10 Skeleton of planar shape 64

2.11 Chemical processors for skeleton computation 65

2.12 Mechanics of skeletonisation 65

2.13 Computing skeletons of geometric shapes 70

2.14 Multitasking in chemical processors 72

3 Logical circuits in chemical media 83

3.1 Logical gates in precipitating medium 84

3.2 Collision-based computing in excitable media 92

3.3 Laboratory prototype of collision-based computer 97

3.4 Hexagonal reaction-diffusion automaton 107

4 Reaction-diffusion controllers for robots 119

4.1 Robot taxis controlled by a Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium 119

4.2 Path planning 128

4.3 Controlling a robotic hand 148

5 Programming reaction-diffusion processors 161

5.1 Controllability 161

5.2 How to program reaction-diffusion computers? 162

5.3 Programming with reaction rates 164

5.4 Programming with excitability 167

6 Silicon reaction-diffusion processors 177

6.1 Modelling reaction-diffusion LSI circuits 179

6.2 Digital reaction-diffusion chips 183

6.3 Analogue reaction-diffusion chips 210

7 Minority-carrier reaction-diffusion device 247

7.1 Reaction-diffusion computing device with p-n-p-n diode 247

7.2 Numerical simulation results 256

7.3 Computing in reaction-diffusion semiconductor devices 260

8 Single-electron reaction-diffusion devices 263

8.1 Constructing electrical analogue of reaction-diffusion systems 263

8.2 Spatio-temporal dynamics produced by the single-electron system 269

8.3 Towards actual reaction-diffusion devices 272

9 Non-constructibility: from devil's advocate 275

9.1 Computing with singularities 275

9.2 Voronoi diagram is not invertible 283

Colour insert 297.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-330) and index.

ISBN:

0444520422

OCLC:

61456724

Publisher Number:

9780444520425