The CAM-Brain Machine (CBM): Real Time Evolution and Update of a 75 Million Neuron FPGA-Based Artificial Brain

This article introduces ATR's CAM-Brain Machine (CBM), an FPGA based piece of hardware which implements a genetic algorithm (GA) to evolve a cellular automata (CA) based neural network circuit module, of approximately 1,000 neurons, in about a second, i.e. a complete run of a GA, with 10,000 s of circuit growths and performance evaluations. Up to 65,000 of these modules, each of which is evolved with a humanly specified function, can be downloaded into a large RAM space, and interconnected according to humanly specified artificial brain architectures. This RAM, containing an artificial brain with up to 75 million neurons, is then updated by the CBM at a rate of 130 billion CA cells per second. Such speeds should enable real time control of robots and hopefully the birth of a new research field that we call brain building. The first such artificial brain, to be built by ATR starting in 2000, will be used to control the behaviors of a life sized robot kitten called Robokoneko.