Evolving fault tolerant digital circuitry: Comparing population-based and correlation-based methods

Embedded systems require fault-tolerant circuitry if they are going to survive in harsh environments over extended time periods. Two approaches to evolving fault-tolerant digital circuitry have been proposed. In the population-based method circuits that perform well in the presence of specific faults are extracted from an evolving population. In the correlation-based method circuits that exhibit different fault patterns are extracted and a majority voter determines the final behavior. In this paper we compare the two fault-tolerant methods using a 2 times 3 binary multiplier circuit as the test case.