Issue 37, 2021

Exploring the symbol processing ‘time interval’ parametric constraint in a Belousov–Zhabotinsky operated chemical Turing machine

Abstract

Chemical reactions are powerful molecular recognition machines. This power has been recently harnessed to build actual instances of each class of experimentally realizable computing automata, using exclusively small-molecule chemistry (i.e. without requiring biomolecules). The most powerful of them, a programmable Turing machine, uses the Belousov–Zhabotinsky oscillatory chemistry, and accepts/rejects input sequences through a dual oscillatory and thermodynamic output signature. The time interval between the aliquots representing each letter of the input is the parameter that determines the time it takes to run the computation. Here, we investigate this critical performance parameter, and its effect not only on the computation speed, but also on the robustness of the accept/reject oscillatory and thermodynamic criteria. Our work demonstrates that the time interval is a non-trivial design parameter, whose choice should be made with great care. The guidelines we provide can be used in the optimization of the speed, robustness, and energy efficiency of chemical automata computations.

Graphical abstract: Exploring the symbol processing ‘time interval’ parametric constraint in a Belousov–Zhabotinsky operated chemical Turing machine

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 May 2021
Accepted
02 Jun 2021
First published
13 Jul 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2021,11, 23151-23160

Exploring the symbol processing ‘time interval’ parametric constraint in a Belousov–Zhabotinsky operated chemical Turing machine

T. C. Draper, M. Dueñas-Díez and J. Pérez-Mercader, RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 23151 DOI: 10.1039/D1RA03856G

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