Bio-inspired computing

Bio-inspired computing, short for biologically inspired computing, is a field of study which seeks to
solve computer science problems using models of biology. It relates to connectionism, social behavior, and
emergence. Within computer science, bio-inspired computing relates to artificial intelligence and machine
learning. Bio-inspired computing is a major subset of natural computation.

History
Early Ideas

The ideas behind biological computing trace back to 1936 and the first description of an abstract computer,
which is now known as a Turing machine. Turing firstly described the abstract construct using a biological
specimen. Turing imagined a mathematician that has three important attributes.[1] He always has a pencil
with an eraser, an unlimited number of papers and a working set of eyes. The eyes allow the mathematician
to see and perceive any symbols written on the paper while the pencil allows him to write and erase any
symbols that he wants. Lastly, the unlimited paper allows him to store anything he wants memory. Using
these ideas he was able to describe an abstraction of the modern digital computer. However Turing
mentioned that anything that can perform these functions can be considered such a machine and he even
said that even electricity should not be required to describe digital computation and machine thinking in
general.[2]

Neural Networks

First described in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts, neural networks are a prevalent example of
biological systems inspiring the creation of computer algorithms.[3] They first mathematically described that
a system of simplistic neurons was able to produce simple logical operations such as logical conjunction,
disjunction and negation. They further showed that a system of neural networks can be used to carry out
any calculation that requires finite memory. Around 1970 the research around neural networks slowed
down and many consider a 1969 book by Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert as the main cause.[4][5]
Their book showed that neural network models were able only model systems that are based on boolean
functions that are true only after a certain threshold value. Such functions are also known as threshold
functions. The book also showed that a large amount of systems cannot be represented as such meaning
that a large amount of systems cannot be modeled by neural networks. Another book by James Rumelhart
and David McClelland in 1986 brought neural networks back to the spotlight by demonstrating the linear
back-propagation algorithm something that allowed the development of multi-layered neural networks that
did not adhere to those limits.[6]

Ant Colonies

Douglas Hofstadter in 1979 described an idea of a biological system capable of performing intelligent
calculations even though the individuals comprising the system might not be intelligent.[7] More
specifically, he gave the example of an ant colony that can carry out intelligent tasks together but each
individual ant cannot exhibiting something called "emergent behavior." Azimi et al. in 2009 showed that
what they described as the "ant colony" algorithm, a clustering algorithm that is able to output the number
of clusters and produce highly competitive final clusters comparable to other traditional algorithms.[8]
Lastly Hölder and Wilson in 2009 concluded using historical data that ants have evolved to function as a
single "superogranism" colony.[9] A very important result since it suggested that group selection
evolutionary algorithms coupled together with algorithms similar to the "ant colony" can be potentially used
to develop more powerful algorithms.

Areas of research
Some areas of study in biologically inspired computing, and their biological counterparts:

Bio-Inspired Computing Topic Biological Inspiration

Genetic Algorithms Evolution

Biodegradability prediction Biodegradation

Cellular Automata Life

Emergence Ants, termites, bees, wasps

Neural networks The brain

Artificial life Life

Artificial immune system Immune system

Patterning and rendering of animal skins, bird feathers, mollusk

Rendering (computer graphics)
shells and bacterial colonies
Lindenmayer systems Plant structures

Communication networks and

Epidemiology
communication protocols

Membrane computers Intra-membrane molecular processes in the living cell

Excitable media Forest fires, "the wave", heart conditions, axons

Sensor networks Sensory organs

Learning classifier systems Cognition, evolution

Artificial intelligence
Bio-Inspired computing can be distinguished from traditional artificial intelligence by its approach to
computer learning. Bio-inspired computing uses an evolutionary approach, while traditional A.I. uses a
'creationist' approach. Bio-inspired computing begins with a set of simple rules and simple organisms which
adhere to those rules. Over time, these organisms evolve within simple constraints. This method could be
considered bottom-up or decentralized. In traditional artificial intelligence, intelligence is often programmed
from above: the programmer is the creator, and makes something and imbues it with its intelligence.

Virtual Insect Example

Bio-inspired computing can be used to train a virtual insect. The insect is trained to navigate in an unknown
terrain for finding food equipped with six simple rules:

turn right for target-and-obstacle left;

turn left for target-and-obstacle right;
turn left for target-left-obstacle-right;
 turn right for target-right-obstacle-left;
turn left for target-left without obstacle;
turn right for target-right without obstacle.

The virtual insect controlled by the trained spiking neural network can find food after training in any
unknown terrain.[10] After several generations of rule application it is usually the case that some forms of
complex behaviour arise. Complexity gets built upon complexity until the result is something markedly
complex, and quite often completely counterintuitive from what the original rules would be expected to
produce (see complex systems). For this reason, in neural network models, it is necessary to accurately
model an in vivo network, by live collection of "noise" coefficients that can be used to refine statistical
inference and extrapolation as system complexity increases.[11]

Natural evolution is a good analogy to this method–the rules of evolution (selection,

recombination/reproduction, mutation and more recently transposition) are in principle simple rules, yet
over millions of years have produced remarkably complex organisms. A similar technique is used in genetic
algorithms.

Brain-inspired computing
Brain-inspired computing refers to computational models and methods that are mainly based on the
mechanism of the brain, rather than completely imitating the brain. The goal is to enable the machine to
realize various cognitive abilities and coordination mechanisms of human beings in a brain-inspired manner,
and finally achieve or exceed Human intelligence level.

Research

Artificial intelligence researchers are now aware of the benefits of learning from the brain information
processing mechanism. And the progress of brain science and neuroscience also provides the necessary
basis for artificial intelligence to learn from the brain information processing mechanism. Brain and
neuroscience researchers are also trying to apply the understanding of brain information processing to a
wider range of science field. The development of the discipline benefits from the push of information
technology and smart technology and in turn brain and neuroscience will also inspire the next generation of
the transformation of information technology.

The influence of brain science on Brain-inspired computing

Advances in brain and neuroscience, especially with the help of new technologies and new equipment,
support researchers to obtain multi-scale, multi-type biological evidence of the brain through different
experimental methods, and are trying to reveal the structure of bio-intelligence from different aspects and
functional basis. From the microscopic neurons, synaptic working mechanisms and their characteristics, to
the mesoscopic network connection model, to the links in the macroscopic brain interval and their
synergistic characteristics, the multi-scale structure and functional mechanisms of brains derived from these
experimental and mechanistic studies will provide important inspiration for building a future brain-inspired
computing model.[12]

Brain-inspired chip
Broadly speaking, brain-inspired chip refers to a chip designed with reference to the structure of human
brain neurons and the cognitive mode of human brain. Obviously, the "neuromorphic chip" is a brain-
inspired chip that focuses on the design of the chip structure with reference to the human brain neuron
model and its tissue structure, which represents a major direction of brain-inspired chip research. Along
with the rise and development of “brain plans” in various countries, a large number of research results on
neuromorphic chips have emerged, which have received extensive international attention and are well
known to the academic community and the industry. For example, EU-backed SpiNNaker and
BrainScaleS, Stanford's Neurogrid, IBM's TrueNorth, and Qualcomm's Zeroth.

TrueNorth is a brain-inspired chip that IBM has been developing for nearly 10 years. The US DARPA
program has been funding IBM to develop pulsed neural network chips for intelligent processing since
2008. In 2011, IBM first developed two cognitive silicon prototypes by simulating brain structures that
could learn and process information like the brain. Each neuron of a brain-inspired chip is cross-connected
with massive parallelism. In 2014, IBM released a second-generation brain-inspired chip called
"TrueNorth." Compared with the first generation brain-inspired chips, the performance of the TrueNorth
chip has increased dramatically, and the number of neurons has increased from 256 to 1 million; the number
of programmable synapses has increased from 262,144 to 256 million; Subsynaptic operation with a total
power consumption of 70  mW and a power consumption of 20  mW per square centimeter. At the same
time, TrueNorth handles a nuclear volume of only 1/15 of the first generation of brain chips. At present,
IBM has developed a prototype of a neuron computer that uses 16 TrueNorth chips with real-time video
processing capabilities.[13] The super-high indicators and excellence of the TrueNorth chip have caused a
great stir in the academic world at the beginning of its release.

In 2012, the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) and the French
Inria collaborated to develop the first chip in the world to support the deep neural network processor
architecture chip "Cambrian".[14] The technology has won the best international conferences in the field of
computer architecture, ASPLOS and MICRO, and its design method and performance have been
recognized internationally. The chip can be used as an outstanding representative of the research direction
of brain-inspired chips.

Challenges in Brain-Inspired Computing

Unclear Brain mechanism cognition

The human brain is a product of evolution. Although its structure and information processing mechanism
are constantly optimized, compromises in the evolution process are inevitable. The cranial nervous system
is a multi-scale structure. There are still several important problems in the mechanism of information
processing at each scale, such as the fine connection structure of neuron scales and the mechanism of brain-
scale feedback. Therefore, even a comprehensive calculation of the number of neurons and synapses is
only 1/1000 of the size of the human brain, and it is still very difficult to study at the current level of
scientific research.[15] Recent advances in brain simulation linked individual variability in human cognitive
processing speed and fluid intelligence to the balance of excitation and inhibition in structural brain
networks, functional connectivity, winner-take-all decision-making and attractor working memory.[16]

Unclear Brain-inspired computational models and algorithms

In the future research of cognitive brain computing model, it is necessary to model the brain information
processing system based on multi-scale brain neural system data analysis results, construct a brain-inspired
multi-scale neural network computing model, and simulate multi-modality of brain in multi-scale. Intelligent
behavioral ability such as perception, self-learning and memory, and choice. Machine learning algorithms
are not flexible and require high-quality sample data that is manually labeled on a large scale. Training
models require a lot of computational overhead. Brain-inspired artificial intelligence still lacks advanced
cognitive ability and inferential learning ability.

Constrained Computational architecture and capabilities

Most of the existing brain-inspired chips are still based on the research of von Neumann architecture, and
most of the chip manufacturing materials are still using traditional semiconductor materials. The neural chip
is only borrowing the most basic unit of brain information processing. The most basic computer system,
such as storage and computational fusion, pulse discharge mechanism, the connection mechanism between
neurons, etc., and the mechanism between different scale information processing units has not been
integrated into the study of brain-inspired computing architecture. Now an important international trend is
to develop neural computing components such as brain memristors, memory containers, and sensory
sensors based on new materials such as nanometers, thus supporting the construction of more complex
brain-inspired computing architectures. The development of brain-inspired computers and large-scale brain
computing systems based on brain-inspired chip development also requires a corresponding software
environment to support its wide application.

See also
Applications of artificial intelligence
Artificial life
Artificial neural network
Behavior based robotics
Bioinformatics
Bionics
Cognitive architecture
Cognitive modeling
Cognitive science
Connectionism
Digital morphogenesis
Digital organism
Evolutionary algorithm
Evolutionary computation
Fuzzy logic
Gene expression programming
Genetic algorithm
Genetic programming
Gerald Edelman
Janine Benyus
Learning classifier system
Mark A. O'Neill
Mathematical biology
Mathematical model
Natural computation
Neuroevolution
Olaf Sporns
 Organic computing
Swarm intelligence
Unconventional computing

Lists

List of emerging technologies

Outline of artificial intelligence

References
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Further reading
(the following are presented in ascending order of complexity and depth, with those new to the field
suggested to start from the top)

"Nature-Inspired Algorithms (https://medium.com/qed-software/nature-inspired-algorithms-77

fc728ab1e1)"
"Biologically Inspired Computing (http://www.cs.uvm.edu/~jbongard/papers/2009_IEEECom
p_Bongard.pdf)"
"Digital Biology (http://peterjbentley.com/)", Peter J. Bentley.
"First International Symposium on Biologically Inspired Computing (https://web.archive.org/
web/20060216011353/http://bic05.fsksm.utm.my/)"
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software (https://books.google.
com/books?id=Au_tLkCwExQC), Steven Johnson.
Dr. Dobb's Journal, Apr-1991. (Issue theme: Biocomputing)
Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams (https://books.google.com/books?id=K8P1rX8T4kYC),
Mitchel Resnick.
Understanding Nonlinear Dynamics, Daniel Kaplan and Leon Glass.
Ridge, E.; Kudenko, D.; Kazakov, D.; Curry, E. (2005). "Moving Nature-Inspired Algorithms to
Parallel, Asynchronous and Decentralised Environments". Self-Organization and Autonomic
Informatics (I). 135: 35–49. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.64.3403 (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/s
ummary?doi=10.1.1.64.3403).
 Swarms and Swarm Intelligence (https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/ws/files/11284565/04160239-2007
-Swarms_and_Swarm_Intelligence.pdf) by Michael G. Hinchey, Roy Sterritt, and Chris
Rouff,
Fundamentals of Natural Computing: Basic Concepts, Algorithms, and Applications (https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=2wTOBQAAQBAJ), L. N. de Castro, Chapman & Hall/CRC,
June 2006.
"The Computational Beauty of Nature (https://web.archive.org/web/20050425003451/http://
mitpress.mit.edu/books/FLAOH/cbnhtml/home.html)", Gary William Flake (http://flakenstein.n
et/). MIT Press. 1998, hardcover ed.; 2000, paperback ed. An in-depth discussion of many of
the topics and underlying themes of bio-inspired computing.
Kevin M. Passino, Biomimicry for Optimization, Control, and Automation (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=7ttpWS75Uo0C), Springer-Verlag, London, UK, 2005.
Recent Developments in Biologically Inspired Computing (https://books.google.com/books?i
d=s_Q5YZ2nh2kC), L. N. de Castro and F. J. Von Zuben, Idea Group Publishing, 2004.
Nancy Forbes, Imitation of Life: How Biology is Inspiring Computing, MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA 2004.
M. Blowers and A. Sisti, Evolutionary and Bio-inspired Computation: Theory and
Applications, SPIE Press, 2007.
X. S. Yang, Z. H. Cui, R. B. Xiao, A. H. Gandomi, M. Karamanoglu, Swarm Intelligence and
Bio-Inspired Computation: Theory and Applications (https://books.google.com/books?id=J0
VcBQxtcwsC), Elsevier, 2013.
"Biologically Inspired Computing Lecture Notes (https://web.archive.org/web/200805170700
16/http://informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/i%2Dbic/)", Luis M. Rocha
The portable UNIX programming system (PUPS) and CANTOR: a computational
envorionment for dynamical representation and analysis of complex neurobiological data,
Mark A. O'Neill, and Claus-C Hilgetag, Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 356 (2001), 1259–1276
"Going Back to our Roots: Second Generation Biocomputing (https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/051207
1)", J. Timmis, M. Amos, W. Banzhaf, and A. Tyrrell, Journal of Unconventional Computing 2
(2007) 349–378.
Neumann, Frank; Witt, Carsten (2010). Bioinspired computation in combinatorial
optimization. Algorithms and their computational complexity. Natural Computing Series.
Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-642-16543-6. Zbl 1223.68002 (https://zbmath.org/?form
at=complete&q=an:1223.68002).
Brabazon, Anthony; O’Neill, Michael (2006). Biologically inspired algorithms for financial
modelling. Natural Computing Series. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-26252-7.
Zbl 1117.91030 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:1117.91030).
C-M. Pintea, 2014, Advances in Bio-inspired Computing for Combinatorial Optimization
Problem (https://www.springer.com/la/book/9783642401787), Springer ISBN 978-3-642-
40178-7
"PSA: A novel optimization algorithm based on survival rules of porcellio scaber (https://arxi
v.org/abs/1709.09840)", Y. Zhang and S. Li

External links
Nature Inspired Computing and Engineering (NICE) (https://web.archive.org/web/20120117
192422/http://www.surrey.ac.uk/computing/research/nice/) Group, University of Surrey, UK
ALife Project in Sussex (https://web.archive.org/web/20040603172329/http://www.cogs.sus
x.ac.uk/users/ezequiel/alife-page/development.html)
Biologically Inspired Computation for Chemical Sensing Neurochem Project (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20130621005509/http://neurochem-project.eu/)
 AND Corporation (http://www.andcorporation.com)
Centre of Excellence for Research in Computational Intelligence and Applications (http://ww
w.cercia.ac.uk/) Birmingham, UK
BiSNET: Biologically-inspired architecture for Sensor NETworks (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20080828173733/http://dssg.cs.umb.edu/wiki/index.php/BiSNET)
BiSNET/e: A Cognitive Sensor Networking Architecture with Evolutionary Multiobjective
Optimization (https://web.archive.org/web/20090622110049/http://dssg.cs.umb.edu/wiki/inde
x.php/BiSNET/e)
Biologically inspired neural networks (https://web.archive.org/web/20060621194332/http://w
ww.neuralnetworksolutions.com/)
NCRA (http://ncra.ucd.ie) UCD, Dublin Ireland
The PUPS/P3 Organic Computing Environment for Linux (http://www.tumblingdice.co.uk/pu
psp3)
SymbioticSphere: A Biologically-inspired Architecture for Scalable, Adaptive and Survivable
Network Systems (https://web.archive.org/web/20090329225051/http://dssg.cs.umb.edu/wik
i/index.php/SymbioticSphere)
The runner-root algorithm (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156849461500
2756)
Bio-inspired Wireless Networking Team (BioNet) (http://www.bionet.ufpr.br)
Biologically Inspired Intelligence (http://www.ai-one.com)

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