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Waste Water Derived Electroactive Microbial Biofilms: Growth, Maintenance, and Basic Characterization
Published on: December 29, 2013
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Towards implementation of cellular automata in Microbial Fuel Cells
Michail-Antisthenis I Tsompanas1, Andrew Adamatzky1, Georgios Ch Sirakoulis2
1Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Plos One
|May 13, 2017
Summary
This study designs a novel biological computing device using Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) to implement Cellular Automata (CA). This approach enables massive parallelism for future autonomous computing systems.
Area of Science:
- Bio-electrochemical systems
- Computational theory
Background:
- Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) convert waste into electricity via microbial communities.
- Cellular Automata (CA) are computational models with local connectivity.
- MFC arrays offer potential for massive-parallel computing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To theoretically design a parallel processor by implementing CA in MFCs.
- To utilize Conway's Game of Life as a benchmark CA for this implementation.
Main Methods:
- Each CA cell is realized using two interconnected MFCs (electrical and hydraulic links).
- A simulation of an equivalent electrical circuit verified the model's behavior.
Main Results:
- The proposed MFC-based CA design demonstrates theoretical feasibility.
- Simulations confirmed equivalent behavior to the CA model.
Conclusions:
- This design is a foundational step towards autonomous biological computing devices.
- MFC-based systems offer energy independence, despite slower state transitions than silicon.
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