Evolution, Development and Evolvable Hardware

Abstract

Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins. Biological development involves the mechanisms that control the spatial distribution of different specialised types of cells and which lead to the different types of tissues, organs, organisms and bodily anatomy. We will consider in this book how engineers might use artificial forms of evolution and development in the creation of their artefacts. In this opening chapter we will give some of the basics related to the subject and some definitions related to Evolvable Hardware that will be of use to you for the rest of the book. Before we get to hardware however, it is useful to give a little consideration to biology.