Oscillation-Based Slime Mould Electronic Circuit Model for Maze-Solving Computations

The ability of slime mould to learn and adapt to periodic changes in its environment inspired scientists to develop behavioral memristor-based circuit models of its memory organization. The computing abilities of slime mould Physarum polycephalum have been used in several applications, including to solve mazes. This work presents a circuit-level bio-inspired maze-solving approach via an electronic model of the oscillatory internal motion mechanism of slime mould, which emulates the local signal propagation and the expansion of its vascular network. Our implementation takes into account the inherent noise existent in the equivalent biological circuit, so that its behavior becomes closer to the non-deterministic behavior of the real organism. The efficiency and generality of the proposed electronic computing medium was validated through SPICE-level circuit simulations and compared with data from two cardinally different biological experiments, concerning 1) enhancing of Physarum's protoplasmic tubes along shortest path and 2) chemo-tactic growth by diffusing chemo-attractants.