California State University San Bernardino
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Masters Thesis Defense

Date Monday, November 10, 2008
Time 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Location JBH 389/391 (Math Conference Room)

Title Simulating Spatial Partial Differential Equations with Cellular Automata

Candidate Brian Strader

Advisor Dr. Keith Schubert

Committee Members Dr. George Georgiou & Dr. Ernesto Gomez

Abstract
Spatial partial differential equations are commonly used to describe 
systems of biological entities, such as patterns of desert vegetation.  
These equations can be transformed into cellular automata models, which 
have the benefit of being easily simulated, highly parallelizable, and 
change the perspective of the model from a global view to a local view.  In
this thesis I propose two methods for transforming a subset of partial 
differential equations into cellular automata models.  Stability and 
convergence for the new cellular automata models are then explored.  From 
this information, I provide a set of guidelines about what simulation 
parameters to pick, with respect to discretization.