When an evolutionary fitness evaluation is the judging of the physical behaviour of a reconfigurable electronic device, evolution can be allowed to explore the whole space of possible configurations. Much of this space is beyond the scope of conventional design methods, so concepts of what electronic circuits can look like need to be broadened. The benefit of such a step is that evolution can then utilise the available resources more efficiently, with richer circuit structure, dynamical behaviour, and respect for the natural physical behaviour of the medium. This has been demonstrated by a simple, but not toy, experiment -- the first direct `intrinsic' evolution of an FPGA configuration.
Acknowledgements: This work was funded by the School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences. Special thanks to the Xilinx Development Corporation, John Gray, Phil Husbands, Dave Cliff, Inman Harvey, Giles Mayley and Tony Hirst.