Bridging the genotype-phenotype mapping for digital FPGAs

To solve the genome complexity issue and enable evolution of large complex circuits, the need to move away from a one-to-one genotype/phenotype mapping is becoming generally accepted. This involves development of new forms of representation with features such as growth. Shrinking the size of the genotype in effect moves complexity from the genotype representation to the genotype/phenotype mapping. The field of digital evolvable hardware is relatively young but already researchers have not only had to move through different technology platforms i.e. 6200, 4000 and Virtex series, but also evolution friendly features have disappeared. A mass produced evolution friendly reconfigurable platform is not likely to be ahead of its and a newer technology more evolution friendly than traditional reconfigurable platforms is not around the corner. To be able to reuse results and lessons learned from today's technology on tomorrow's technology and exploit the power of evolution, one solution is to provide a virtual evolution friendly reconfigurable platform which may be mapped onto a given technology. We propose a two stage genotype/phenotype mapping using our virtual evolvable hardware FPGA as the bridge. The two stages simplify the genotype/phenotype transition at the same time as the virtual evolvable hardware FPGA bridge provides a more evolution friendly platform, further reducing the complexity of the genotype representation.