Improving flexibility in on-line evolvable systems by reconfigurable computing

Abstract. Reconfigurable logic is a promising technology for adaptable systems – often called reconfigurable computing. However, one of the main challenges with autonomous adaptable systems is the flexibility. The paper starts with giving an overview of reconfigurable computing and different approaches to how it can be implemented. Then, we outline how these can be applied in on-line evolvable systems to improve flexi-bility in the hardware. The challenge of the latter is to include flexibility without re-synthesis and avoid having a too large logic gate overhead. An architecture based on system-on-chip and partial reconfiguration is proposed in the paper.