A Reconfigurable Custom Machine for Accelerating Cellular Genetic Algorithms

In this work we present a reconfigurable and scalable custom processor array for solving optimization problems using cellular genetic algorithms (cGAs), based on a regular fabric of processing nodes and local memories. Cellular genetic algorithms are a variant of the well-known genetic algorithm tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: P. V. Santos, José Carlos Alves, João Canas Ferreira
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade do Porto 2016-07-01
Series:U.Porto Journal of Engineering
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journalengineering.fe.up.pt/article/view/64
Description
Summary:In this work we present a reconfigurable and scalable custom processor array for solving optimization problems using cellular genetic algorithms (cGAs), based on a regular fabric of processing nodes and local memories. Cellular genetic algorithms are a variant of the well-known genetic algorithm that can conveniently exploit the coarse-grain parallelism afforded by this architecture. To ease the design of the proposed computing engine for solving different optimization problems, a high-level synthesis design flow is proposed, where the problem-dependent operations of the algorithm are specified in C++ and synthesized to custom hardware. A spectrum allocation problem was used as a case study and successfully implemented in a Virtex-6 FPGA device, showing relevant figures for the computing acceleration.
ISSN:2183-6493