Exploring the symbol processing 'time interval' parametric constraint in a Belousov-Zhabotinsky operated chemical Turing machine

Draper, Thomas C.; Due�as-D�ez, Marta; P�rez-Mercader, Juan

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.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 2, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jul 13, 2021
• Publication Date: Jul 13, 2021
• Deposit Date: Apr 26, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 27, 2022
• Journal: RSC Advances
• Electronic ISSN: 2046-2069
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 37
• Pages: 23151-23160
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d1ra03856g
• Keywords: General Chemical Engineering; General Chemistry; unconventional computing; molecular computing
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9303908
• Additional Information: : This document is Similarity Check deposited; : Supplementary Information; : Thomas C. Draper (ORCID); : Thomas C. Draper (ResearcherID); : Marta Dueñas-Díez (ORCID); : Juan Pérez-Mercader (ORCID); : Single-blind; : Received 17 May 2021; Accepted 2 June 2021; Version of Record published 13 July 2021