Autonomous genetic machine

Research in evolvable hardware includes application of evolutionary methods in a process of system design and on-line system adaptation. Building a hardware system capable of performing adaptation processes without external computing resources is a necessary step towards achieving a high level autonomy. Such a system, called Autonomous Genetic Machine (AGM), is presented in this paper. It represents a hardware realization of a genetic algorithm. Modular architecture of the AGM ensures its ease for modifications and suitability for different applications. A detailed description of design stages and implementation issues is included with emphasis focused on performance-related topics. We elaborate on the role of crucial parameters of genetic optimization such as population size, chromosome length as well as discuss various possibilities in the formation of the fitness function. In particular, we show how to design AGM for Altera's FPGAs.