Mahi Comput. Modelling, Vol. 11, pp. 367-369, 1988 0895.7177/88 $3.00 + 0.

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Printed in Great Britain Pergamon Press plc

The Power of Totalistic Cellular Automata

and Totalistic Systolic Networks *

Karel Culik II
Department of Computer Science

University of Sou th Carolina

Columbia, S. C. 29208

Abstract
A systolic network is an array of synchronized processors. It is
totalistic if the states of its processors are integers and the next state
of each processor is determined by the sum of all the states in its
neighborhood including its own. Our main result is that every uniform
regular network can be simulated by a totalistic systolic network.

Keywords: Systolic network; totalistic automaton; graph coloring.

versal. D. Gordon [3] has shown that totalistic one-

1 Introduction
dimensional CA can simulate Turing Machine. This
Systolic systems introduced by Kung and Leiserson result has been strengthened in [11,where it was shown
[4] are regular arrays of synchronized processors which that every one-dimensional CA can be simulated by a
process data in parallel by passing them from one pro- totalistic one.
cessor to the neighboring ones in a regular rhythmical Here, we introduce new types of coloring of di-
pattern. rected graphs and use them to define the regularity
For the purpose of this paper we define a systolic condition for systolic networks. Our definition is very
network as an arbitrary synchronized network of finite broad so that every uniform (all processors identical)
automata. We then make precise the notion of regu- network commonly considered to be regular is systolic
larity of such a network. A special case of a regular according to our definition.
systolic network is an n-dimensional cellular automa- Our main results are that every network based
ton (CA). Interest in CA has been renewed since their on bounded in-degree digraph can be simulated by
application to the study of complex systems [5,6]. In a semitotalistic network and that every systolic net-
this context S. Wolfram introduced the notion of to- work can be simulated by a uniform totalistic systolic
talistic CA. A CA is totalistic if its cells have integers network.
as states and the next state of a cell only depends on To make our more general results in the last sec-
the sum of all the cells in its neighborhood including tion more readable we first remind how to simulate a
itself, A CA is called semitotalistic if the next state one-dimensional CA by a totalistic one [l].
(an integer) of a cell depends on its own current state Definition. A cellular automaton A with set of
and the sum of the states of its neighbors, excluding states Q and transition function f : Q x Q x Q + Q is
the cell itself. The well known “Game of life” is an called totalistic, if Q 2 N (positive integers) and there
example of a semitotalistic 2-dimensional CA. exists a function f’ : U + .N such that ~(z,Y,z) =
S. Wolfram asked whether totalistic CA are uni- f’(r + y + z) for all z, y, z in Q.

- 4 4
s-2 S-1 SO
- - -

Figure 1: A configuration of cellular automaton A

The transformation of an arbitrary one-dimension- left neighbor, the right neighbor and the own cell are
al CA whose states are the positive integers, see Fig- still identifiable by the position of a missing entry.
ure 1, is accomplished by a cyclic “coloring” of cells. Consider e.g. a cellular automaton A with set
We use four different powers of a basis B such that in of states Q = 1,2,. . , n and transition function d :
the number representation with base B (B-ary num- Q x Q x Q --) Q and let the Figure 1 depict part of
bers) of the sum of any three neighboring states the configuration of A. Let B = n + 1 be the basis for

‘This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Coun-
cil of Canada under Grant No. A-7403

MCM cod-”

367
368 Proc. 6th In!. Conf on Mathematical ModrIling

s-x - - -
lOOXS_~ lOXS_l
-
so
-
1000 x

--
s1
-
100 x ss
--c

-
10x3s
-

Figure 2: A configuration of the totalistic CA simulating CA A

the coloring factors 10, 100 and 1000 (in B-ary no- (i) K; c N for each i 5 12, and
tation). Then the configuration in Figure 1 changes
(ii) there exists a function 9 : N + .N such that for
to the one in Figure 2. Note that our “coloring” is
all 2e,5rr . . , 5, for which 6 is defined
proper, in-strong and nice in the notation of Section
3. 6( zo, 51,. . ) 5”) = g(z0 + ‘. + z,).
Thus our new set of states is Further, a FSM is semitotalistic if instead of the above
(ii) the following holds:
Q’ = {s x m 1 s E Q, m E {l,lO, 100,1000}},
(iii) there exists a function f : ,VN2--) N such that for
where s x m is the product of integers s and m. So Q’ all ~0,. . , 2, for which 6 is defined
contains 4n states and we can define now the (partial)
6(x0,51,..., Zn) =g(zo,zl+“.+z,).
totalistic transition function d’ : N + Q’ as follows
A network N is called totalistic or semitotalistic
d’(zyz) = 10 x d(z, y, z) if all of its processors are so. It follows immediately
d’(syz0) = 100 x d(s, y,z) that the underlying graph of a (semi)totalistic net-
d’(yzOz) = 1000 x d(z, y,z) work need not be ordered. Further, a network is
d’(zOzy) = d(s, y,z) called unifomn if all of its processors are identical, i.e.
card(M) = 1. Clearly, the underlying graph of a uni-
for all z, y, z in Q. Again zyz, zyz0, yzOz, zOzy, 10,100,
form network is of a constant in-degree, that is all of
1000 are to be interpreted as numbers in B-ary sys-
its vertices have the same in-degree.
tem.
In order to derive our simulation results we will
It is now straightforward, that the cellular au-
need the following notions. Let G = (V,E) be a di-
tomaton A with set of states Q’ and totalistic transi-
rected graph and rw: V --t C, where C is a finite set
tion function d’ correctly simulates A without loss of
of colors, its vertex labeling called coloring. We say
time and therefore we have
that LYis
Theorem 1 For every cellular automaton A there ez-
ists a totalistic cellular automaton A’ which simulates
(i) proper if (U,ZI) E E implies O(U) # o(v),
A without loss of time and has at most four times as
(ii) in-strong if (u,w), (zI,u)) E E with u # u imply
many states as A.
o(u) # o(v),

(iii) nice if there exists a function f : 2c + C such

2 Definitions that for each 2) E V, a(u) = f(&(v)) where &(v) =

In this section we briefly define notions needed in this (o(u)>” {o(u)I(%u) E E:>.
note and fix our terminology. Condition (i) is well known, while (ii) and (iii)
A systolic network, or briefly network, is a triple seem to be new. Intuitively, (iii) means that the color
N = (G, p, d) where of a vertex u is uniquely defined by a set of colors
consisting of the color of u and its neighbors.
6) Q = (V, E) is a directed ordered graph,
Example The directed graph in Figure 3 is proper
(ii) p : V -+ M, where M is a finite set of finite state and in-strong but not nice; the one in Figure 4 is
machines, is a function called processor labeling, proper, in-strong and nice.
and

(iii) d :E -+ N is a function called delay indicator.

Here a finite state machine (FSM) is a tuple A =

(Ko,K1 ,..., K,,h)wheren>Oand

(i) Ke is the state set of A,

(ii) Kj, for i = 1,. . . ,n, is the state set of the ith
neighbor of A, and

(iii) 6 : PC0 X K1 X . . x K,, + KO is the (partial)

transition function of A.

From the point of view of this note the following Figure 3: A proper and in-strong but not nice digraph.
two types of FSM’s are important. Let N denotes the
set of positive integers. A FSM A is totalistic if
 Proc. 6th Int. Cmf. on Mathematical Modelling 369

3 Results
Now we generalize the simulation technique shown for
CA in the introduction.

Lemma 1 For each directed gmph with bounded in-

degree there exists (vertex) coloring that is in-strong.

Theorem 2 For every (finite OT infinite) network N =

(G,p,d) such that G has bounded in-degree zue can
construct a semitotalistic network fi
= (G,$,d) such that fi strongly simulates N.
Figure 4: A proper, in-strong and nice digraph.
Definition. A network N = (G,p, d) is called J~J-
Finally, we define what we mean by saying that tolic if it satisfies the following (regularity) conditions.
a network strongly simulates another one. First, a (i) G is of uniform in-degree,i. e. all nodes in V
configuration w of network N is an assignment of have the same in-degree.
states to each processor. In the case of an infinite
network it is natural to require that, for each config- (ii) There exists a (vertex) coloring of G that is
uration the vertices with processors in nonquiescent proper, in-strong and nice.
states form a connected subgraph of G. Now, we say
Lemma 2 For every systolic network N = (G,p,d)
that network Nr = (Gl,p,,dl) strongly simulates net-
there exists a (vertex) coloring (Y such that
work NZ = (Gz,~2,&),
if
(i) a is proper, in-strong and nice;
(i) Gr = Gr and dr = d2, in other words, Nr and Nr (ii) (Y is a refinement of p, that is for all u, u E V
differ at most through their processor labelings,
a(u) = a(v) implies p(u) = p(v).
and
(ii) there exists a one-to-one mapping g : RI + R2, Theorem 3 For every systolic network N we can con-
where f& denotes the set of configurations of N;, struct a totalistic systolic network N that strongly sim-
such that for each ulates N.

s(nezrr(w)) = nezrr(s(zu)), (1) For examples and proofs of similar results see [Z].

where nezti defines the change of configurations

in one step computations according to Ni. References
Mathematically, (1) says that the diagram in Figure 5
111 J.Albert and K. Culik II, Simple Universal Cel-
commutes. lular Automaton and its One-way and Totalistic
Version, Complex Systems 1 (1987) 1-16.

PI K. Culik II and J. Karhumaki, On Totalistic

Systolic Networks, Inf. Proc. Letters, to appear.

[31 D. Gordon, On the Computational Power of To-

talistic Cellular Automata, manuscript.

[41 H.T. Kung and C.E. Leiserson, Systolic Arrays

next2 (for VLSI). Proceedings Sparse Matrix Confer-
c R2 ence (1978).

Figure 5: Commutative diagram. [51 S. Wolfram, Computation Theory of Cellular

Automata, Communications in Mathematical
Physics 96 (1984) 15-57.
Our notion “strongly simulates” is very restricted,
indeed. Namely, it is not important to specify how a [61S. Wolfram, Universality and Complexity in
network “computes” since in any natural case “strong Cellular Automata, Physica 10 D (1984) l-35.
simulation” means intuitive simulation. Further, the
functions d (defining delays) do not play any role, that
is the reason why we have not specified their behavior.