Post-Binary Robotics: Using Memristors With Ternary States for Robotics Control

This paper presents a method to read and write ternary (three-valued) signals on memristors to control a robotic actuator in real-time. The paper is a continuation of earlier work by [1] and implements a ternary memory controller for memristors in hardware. This post-binary approach with nonvolatile memory is used to program a memristor as a "trit". The paper contributes to the state-of-the-art in memristor controlled robotics by reporting an entropy gain of log2(3)= 58% information at (20 versus 14)= 43% more component cost compared to binary. This advantage (eg. less wire complexity) increases when multi-trit architectures are considered.This article demonstrates both an LTspice simulation of the circuit and implementation with source code. The memristor programmer circuit writes a state to the memristor using a pattern of 100us pulses at 3 different amplitudes. The memristor read circuit sends 500 nA pulses and converts these using two reference resistors to three logic levels using an op amp window comparator. An Arduino Mega microcontroller ADC pin converts the analog output to a digital trit. Strenuous effort was made for predictable and replicable applied memristor research in pursuit of a post-binary robotics era. The multiple-valued circuit has safety features to prevent harm to the memristance state, standardized forming of new memristors and programming flexibility by sending patterns of different pulse amounts, pulse width and pulse amplitudes.