A Comparative Study of Information Processing in Biological and Bio-inspired Systems: Performance Criteria, Resources Tradeoffs and Fundamental Limits

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EIA-0130812 Andreas G. Andreou Johns Hopkins University A Comparative Study of Information Processing in Biological and Bio-inspired systems: Performance Criteria, Resources Tradeoffs and Fundamental LimitsWe propose a research program towards a fundamental and quantitative understanding of the tradeoffs between system performance and resources such as size, reliability and energy requirements for biological and bio-inspired microsystems. We employ the mathematical tools of communication theory and model natural or synthetic physical structures as micro-scale communication networks, studying them under physical constraints at two different levels of abstraction. At the functional level we examine the operational and task specification, while at the implementation level we examine the physical specification and realization. Both levels of abstraction are characterized by Shannon's channel capacity, as determined by the channel bandwidth, the signal power; and the noise power. The link between the functional level and the physical level of abstraction is established through first principles and phenomenological otherwise, models for transformations on the signal, physical constraints on the system, and noise that degrades the signal.