Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware - 8th International Conference, ICES 2008, Prague, Czech Republic, September 21-24, 2008, Proceedings (Paperback, 2008 ed.)

In the mid 1990s, researchers began applying Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) on a kind of computer chip that could dynamically alter the functionality and physicalconnectionsofits circuits. This combinationofEAs withprogrammable electronics (e. g., Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Field P- grammable Analogue Arrays (FPAAs)) spawned a new ?eld of Evolutionary Computation (EC) called Evolvable Hardware (EH) with its ?rst workshop, - wards Evolvable Hardware, held in Lausanne, Switzerland in October 1995. This workshop was followed by the First International Conference on Evolvable S- tems: From Biology to Hardware (ICES' 96), held inTsukuba, Japanin October 1996. The second ICES was held in Lausanne, September 1998, the third was in Edinburgh, April 2000, the fourth was in Tokyo, October 2001, the ?fth was in Trondheim, March 2003, the sixth was in Sitges, September 2005, and the seventh was in Wuhan, September 2007. Over the years the EH ?eld has expanded beyond the use of EAs on simple electronic devices to encompass many di?erent combinations of EAs and biol- ically inspired algorithms (BIAs) with various physical devices (or simulations of physical devices). Present research in the ?eld of EH can be split into the two related areas of Evolvable HardwareDesign (EHD) and Adaptive Hardware (AH). Evolvable Hardware Design (EHD) is the use of EAs and BIAs for cre- ing physical devices and designs, examples of where EHD has had some success include analogue and digital electronics, antennas, MEMS chips, opticalsystems aswell asquantum circuits.