On computing in fine-grained compartmentalised Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how arrays of vesicles filled with Belousov-Zhabotinsky solution can perform logical operations and arithmetic, paving the way for chemical-based massively parallel computing systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of implementing logical gates and arithmetic circuits using chemical vesicles in a fine-grained compartmentalised BZ medium.

Findings

Vesicles can implement basic logical functions through wave collision.

Logical gates are cascaded to perform binary addition.

The approach suggests potential for chemical massively parallel computing.

Abstract

We introduce results of computer experiments on information processing in a hexagonal array of vesicles filled with Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) solution in a sub-excitable mode. We represent values of Boolean variables by excitation wave-fragments and implement basic logical gates by colliding the wave-fragments. We show that a vesicle filled with BZ mixture can implement a range of basic logical functions. We cascade BZ-vesicle logical gates into arithmetic circuits implementing addition of two one-bit binary numbers. We envisage that our theoretical results will be applied in chemical laboratory designs of massive-parallel computers based on fine-grained compartmentalisation of excitable chemical systems.