Abstract
Genetic programming is known to be capable of creating
designs that satisfy prespecified high-level design
requirements for analog electrical circuits and other
complex structures. However, in the real world, it is
often important that a design satisfy various
non-technical requirements. One such requirement is
that a design not possess the key characteristics of
any previously known design. This paper shows that
genetic programming can be used to generate novel
solutions to a design problem so that genetic
programming may be potentially used as an invention
machine. This paper turns the clock back to the period
just before the time (1917) when George Campbell of
American Telephone and Telegraph invented and patented
the design for an electrical circuit that is now known
as the ladder filter. Genetic programming is used to
reinvent the Campbell filter. The paper then turns the
clock back to the period just before the time (1928)
when Wilhelm Cauer invented and patented the elliptic
filter. Genetic programming is then used to reinvent a
technically equivalent filter that avoids the key
characteristics of then-preexisting Campbell filter.
Genetic programming can be used as an invention machine
by employing a two-part fitness measure that
incorporates both the degree to which an individual in
the population satisfies the given technical
requirements and the degree to which the individual
does not possess the key characteristics of preexisting
technology.
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