Evolvable building blocks for analog fuzzy logic controllers

This work discusses the use of an evolvable hardware (EHW) platform in the synthesis of analog electronic circuits for fuzzy logic controllers. A fuzzy logic controller (FLC) is defined by a collection of fuzzy if-then rules and a set of membership functions characterizing the linguistic terms associated with the inputs and output of the FLC. The EHW analog platform, named PAMA-NG (programmable analog multiplexer array - next generation), is a reconfigurable platform that consists of integrated circuits whose internal connections can be programmed by evolutionary computation techniques, such as genetic algorithms, to synthesize circuits. The PAMA-NG is classified as a field programmable analog array (FPAA). FPAAs have appeared recently and constitute the state of the art in the technology of reconfigurable platforms. These devices will become the building blocks of a forthcoming class of hardware, with the important features of self-adaptation and self-repairing, through automatic reconfiguration. This article focuses on the development of building blocks for analog FLCs on the PAMA-NG and presents case studies.