Driver Mechanisms on Cellular Automata
Bhavin Sheth
Prantik Nag
Robert W. Hellwarth
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0484, USA
Abstract
A driver mechanism is introduced to a cellular automaton by which the state of one or several cells is controlled independently of the other cells. One way of achieving this is to set certain cell values using a separate rule governed by external inputs to the cellular automaton. When such a mechanism is used in the Life rule, one-dimensional waves are generated by the driver cell and are propagated along the cellular automaton. It is hoped that such driving cells may be used to study the effects of disturbances to real-life models.
