EVOLVABLE HARDWARE CHIPS for INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS.

Evolvable hardware (EHW) is based on the idea of combining reconfigurable hardware devices with genetic algorithms to execute reconfiguration autonomously. Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and programmable logic devices are typical examples of reconfigurable hardware devices. The article presents four applications of EHW that illustrate that it is a key technology providing opportunities for the development of new and exciting applications, which would be impossible without its the autonomously adaptive function. Although FPGA technology is spreading rapidly and the usefulness of reconfigurable hardware is becoming more widely recognized, this technology is severely limited by the fact that reconfiguration of its hardware is not autonomous. The dynamic and autonomous nature of EHW makes it ideally suited for applications that are time-variant in nature, or for those that suffer from real-time constraints, but as the versatility of applications described here amply demonstrate, the EHW concept is so generic that it can be applied to a wide variety of applications.