This work discusses the use of an Evolvable Hardware (EHW) platform in the synthesis of analog electronic circuits for Fuzzy Logic Controllers. A Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) is defined by a collection of fuzzy if-then rules and a set of membership functions characterizing the linguistic terms associated with the inputs and output of the FLC. The EHW analog platform, named PAMA-NG (Programmable Analog Multiplexer Array - Next Generation), is a reconfigurable platform that consists of integrated circuits whose internal connections can be programmed by Evolutionary Computation techniques, such as Genetic Algorithms, to synthesize circuits. The PAMA-NG is classified as a Field Programmable Analog Array (FPAA). FPAAs have appeared recently and constitute the state of the art in the technology of reconfigurable platforms. These devices will become the building blocks of a forthcoming class of hardware, with the important features of self-adaptation and selfrepairing, through automatic reconfiguration. This article of these devices enables the self-adapting and selfrepairing features, which are important in applications where circuits need to operate for long periods in harsh environments. This is especially appealing to FLC hardware that could be used in this type of applications.
Previous FLC analog hardware implementations [7][8] are based on designer's experience and intuition following electronic circuit design common rules. On the other hand, synthesis of unconventional electronic circuits is particular appealing to EHW [6]. Its use in the synthesis of analog electronic circuits that implement fuzzy inference systems has been explored recently with promising results [9][10][11].
This paper is divided into four additional sections. The second presents some basics architectural aspects of FLCs and their analog hardware implementations. Section describes the PAMA (Programmable Analog Multiplexer Array) [12] and the modifications carried out to evolve fuzzy circuits with the new platform PAMA-NG (PAMA - Next Generation). Section 4 presents case studies that focus on the evolution of building blocks for analog FLCs. Section 5 concludes the work.