Evolving Order and Chaos: Comparing Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithms for Global Coordination of Cellular Automata

Evolving Order and Chaos: Comparing Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithms for Global Coordination of Cellular Automata Anthony D. Rhodes Portland State University Abstract -- We apply two evolutionary search algorithms: Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to the design of Cellular Automata (CA) that can perform computational tasks requiring global coordination. In particular, we compare search efficiency for PSO and GAs applied to both the density classification problem and to the novel generation of "chaotic" CA. Our work furthermore introduces a new variant of PSO, the Binary Global-Local PSO (BGL-PSO). I. INTRODUCTION: CELLULAR AUTOMATA Cellular Automata (CA) are discrete, spatially-extended dynamical systems consisting of cells, each of which contains a finite state machine. Given an initial configuration of cells, CA evolve over time by performing computations according to local rules.