Bounded Languages Meet Cellular Automata with Sparse Communication

Cellular automata are one-dimensional arrays of interconnected interacting finite automata. We investigate one of the weakest classes, the real-time one-way cellular automata, and impose an additional restriction on their inter-cell communication by bounding the number of allowed uses of the links between cells. Moreover, we consider the devices as acceptors for bounded languages in order to explore the borderline at which non-trivial decidability problems of cellular automata classes become decidable. It is shown that even devices with drastically reduced communication, that is, each two neighboring cells may communicate only constantly often, accept bounded languages that are not semilinear. If the number of communications is at least logarithmic in the length of the input, several problems are undecidable. The same result is obtained for classes where the total number of communications during a computation is linearly bounded

Sublinearly space bounded iterative arrays

Iterative arrays (IAs) are a, parallel computational model with a sequential processing of the input. They are one-dimensional arrays of interacting identical deterministic finite automata. In this note, realtime-lAs with sublinear space bounds are used to accept formal languages. The existence of a proper hierarchy of space complexity classes between logarithmic anel linear space bounds is proved. Furthermore, an optimal spacc lower bound for non-regular language recognition is shown. Key words: Iterative arrays, cellular automata, space bounded computations, decidability questions, formal languages, theory of computatio

Descriptional complexity of cellular automata and decidability questions

We study the descriptional complexity of cellular automata (CA), a parallel model of computation. We show that between one of the simplest cellular models, the realtime-OCA. and "classical" models like deterministic finite automata (DFA) or pushdown automata (PDA), there will be savings concerning the size of description not bounded by any recursive function, a so-called nonrecursive trade-off. Furthermore, nonrecursive trade-offs are shown between some restricted classes of cellular automata. The set of valid computations of a Turing machine can be recognized by a realtime-OCA. This implies that many decidability questions are not even semi decidable for cellular automata. There is no pumping lemma and no minimization algorithm for cellular automata

On the descriptional complexity of iterative arrays

The descriptional complexity of iterative arrays (lAs) is studied. Iterative arrays are a parallel computational model with a sequential processing of the input. It is shown that lAs when compared to deterministic finite automata or pushdown automata may provide savings in size which are not bounded by any recursive function, so-called non-recursive trade-offs. Additional non-recursive trade-offs are proven to exist between lAs working in linear time and lAs working in real time. Furthermore, the descriptional complexity of lAs is compared with cellular automata (CAs) and non-recursive trade-offs are proven between two restricted classes. Finally, it is shown that many decidability questions for lAs are undecidable and not semidecidable

Counter Machines and Distributed Automata: A Story about Exchanging Space and Time

We prove the equivalence of two classes of counter machines and one class of distributed automata. Our counter machines operate on finite words, which they read from left to right while incrementing or decrementing a fixed number of counters. The two classes differ in the extra features they offer: one allows to copy counter values, whereas the other allows to compute copyless sums of counters. Our distributed automata, on the other hand, operate on directed path graphs that represent words. All nodes of a path synchronously execute the same finite-state machine, whose state diagram must be acyclic except for self-loops, and each node receives as input the state of its direct predecessor. These devices form a subclass of linear-time one-way cellular automata.Comment: 15 pages (+ 13 pages of appendices), 5 figures; To appear in the proceedings of AUTOMATA 2018

On one-way cellular automata with a fixed number of cells

We investigate a restricted one-way cellular automaton (OCA) model where the number of cells is bounded by a constant number k, so-called kC-OCAs. In contrast to the general model, the generative capacity of the restricted model is reduced to the set of regular languages. A kC-OCA can be algorithmically converted to a deterministic finite automaton (DFA). The blow-up in the number of states is bounded by a polynomial of degree k. We can exhibit a family of unary languages which shows that this upper bound is tight in order of magnitude. We then study upper and lower bounds for the trade-off when converting DFAs to kC-OCAs. We show that there are regular languages where the use of kC-OCAs cannot reduce the number of states when compared to DFAs. We then investigate trade-offs between kC-OCAs with different numbers of cells and finally treat the problem of minimizing a given kC-OCA

Fast cellular automata with restricted inter-cell communication: computational capacity

A d-dimensional cellular automaton with sequential input mode is a d-dimensional grid of interconnected interacting finite automata. The distinguished automaton at the origin, the communication cell, is connected to the outside world and fetches the input sequentially. Often in the literature this model is referred to as iterative array. We investigate d-dimensional iterative arrays and one-dimensional cellular automata operating in real and linear time, whose inter-cell communication is restricted to some constant number of bits independent of the number of states. It is known that even one-dimensional one-bit iterative arrays accept rather complicated languages such as {ap│prim} or {a2n│n∈N}[16]. We show that there is an infinite strict double dimension-bit hierarchy. The computational capacity of the one-dimensional devices in question is compared with the power of communication-restricted two-way cellular automata. It turns out that the relations are quite diferent from the relations in the unrestricted case. On passing, we obtain an infinite strict bit hierarchy for real-time two-way cellular automata and, moreover, a very dense time hierarchy for every k-bit cellular automata, i.e., just one more time step leads to a proper superfamily of accepted languages.4th IFIP International Conference on Theoretical Computer ScienceRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Fast cellular automata with restricted inter-cell communication: computational capacity

A d-dimensional cellular automaton with sequential input mode is a d-dimensional grid of interconnected interacting finite automata. The distinguished automaton at the origin, the communication cell, is connected to the outside world and fetches the input sequentially. Often in the literature this model is referred to as iterative array. We investigate d-dimensional iterative arrays and one-dimensional cellular automata operating in real and linear time, whose inter-cell communication is restricted to some constant number of bits independent of the number of states. It is known that even one-dimensional one-bit iterative arrays accept rather complicated languages such as {ap│prim} or {a2n│n∈N}[16]. We show that there is an infinite strict double dimension-bit hierarchy. The computational capacity of the one-dimensional devices in question is compared with the power of communication-restricted two-way cellular automata. It turns out that the relations are quite diferent from the relations in the unrestricted case. On passing, we obtain an infinite strict bit hierarchy for real-time two-way cellular automata and, moreover, a very dense time hierarchy for every k-bit cellular automata, i.e., just one more time step leads to a proper superfamily of accepted languages.4th IFIP International Conference on Theoretical Computer ScienceRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

On two-way communication in cellular automata with a fixed number of cells

The effect of adding two-way communication to k cells one-way cellular automata (kC-OCAs) on their size of description is studied. kC-OCAs are a parallel model for the regular languages that consists of an array of k identical deterministic finite automata (DFAs), called cells, operating in parallel. Each cell gets information from its right neighbor only. In this paper, two models with different amounts of two-way communication are investigated. Both models always achieve quadratic savings when compared to DFAs. When compared to a one-way cellular model, the result is that minimum two-way communication can achieve at most quadratic savings whereas maximum two-way communication may provide savings bounded by a polynomial of degree k