Emerging Technolog – ‘Wet’ computing systems
Dr Maurits de Planque and Dr Klaus-Peter Zauner at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) are working towards developing a new kind of information processing technology that is inspired by chemical processes in living systems. The project is entitled Artificial Wet Neuronal Networks from Compartmentalised Excitable Chemical Material.
Dr de Planque, a biochemist, and Dr Zauner, a computer scientist, will adapt brain processes to a ‘wet’ information processing scenario by setting up chemicals in a tube which behave like the transistors in a computer chip. To begin with the researchers are developing lipid-coated water droplets (that are very similar to biological cells), containing an excitable chemical medium. They will then connect the droplets into networks in which they can communicate through chemical signals. Their second objective is to design information-processing architectures based on the droplets and to demonstrate purposeful information processing in droplet architectures. Finally they want to establish and explore the potential and limitations of droplet architectures.
“What we are developing here is a very crude, minimal liquid brain and the final computer will be ‘wet’ just like our brain,” said Dr Zauner. “People realise now that the best information processes we have are in our heads and as we are increasingly finding that silicon has its limitations in terms of information processing, we need to explore other approaches, which is exactly what we are doing here.”
“Our system will copy some key features of neuronal pathways in the brain and will be capable of excitation, self-repair and self-assembly,” said Dr de Planque.
The project is being co-ordinated by Friedrich Schiller University Jena with other project partners, the University of the West of England, Bristol and the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw.
Source: http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2010/jan/10_03.shtml
January 13, 2010