Experiments on autonomous Boolean networks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the implementation of autonomous Boolean networks on FPGAs, enabling the study of complex dynamical behaviors like chaos and excitability in large-scale, flexible topologies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel FPGA-based experimental platform for autonomous Boolean networks, allowing exploration of complex network dynamics beyond traditional methods.

Findings

Networks exhibit periodic, chaotic, and excitable behaviors

Flexible topologies with time-delay links are realizable

Potential to test theoretical results on complex network dynamics

Abstract

We realize autonomous Boolean networks by using logic gates in their autonomous mode-of-operation on a field-programmable gate array. This allows us to implement time-continuous systems with complex dynamical behaviors that can be conveniently interconnected into large-scale networks with flexible topologies that consist of time-delay links and a large number of nodes. We demonstrate how we realize networks with periodic, chaotic, and excitable dynamics and study their properties. Field-programmable gate arrays define a new experimental paradigm that holds great potential to test a large body of theoretical results on the dynamics of complex networks, which has been beyond reach of traditional experimental approaches.