A new class of fault-tolerant systems: FPGA implementation of bio-inspired self-repairing system

This paper presents an hardware realization of a novel bio-inspired architecture with reconfiguration properties able to implement any logical function and to restore its own operativity when an error happens. Drawing inspiration from the biological systems, where the mechanisms of self-diagnosis and self-healing continuously operate for maintaining the functionality of the system, and exploiting the potentialities offered by the FPGAs, three important characteristics have been implemented in digital systems: self-replication, self-test and self-repair. Particularly, the paper describes the realization of the bio-inspired architecture on FPGA, focusing in detail the timing of the state machine of each cell, that manages the operation of the device and the properties of self-replication, self-test and self-repair.