AUTOMATON-AN ABSTRACT COMPUTING DEVISE & ITS RECENT TRENDS

ABSTRACT The theory of formal languages arose in the 50's when computer scientists were trying to use computers to translate one language to the another. Although not much was achieved at that time in translation of natural languages, it paved the way for describing computer languages such as ALGOL 60 later. In the mid of thirties Turing machine was introduced to develop the theory of computability. In turned out that Turing machines were the most general devises for accepting formal languages. Now the theory of formal languages ,automata and computation which have emerged respectively as mathematical models of programming languages, computers and capability of a computer have wide range of applications in compiling techniques, robotics, artificial intelligence and knowledge engineering. Automata theory is a branch of computer science that deals with designing abstract self propelled computing devices that fallow a predetermined sequence of operations automatically .Formal languages and automata theory is a complicated subject historically only tackled by well trained and experienced experts however as more and more people become aware of this an increasing number of people need to understand the basics of automata theory ,languages and computation This survey provides a comparative overview of general theory of automata, the basics of formal languages ,pushdown automata and its relation with context free languages, linear bounded automata and Turing machines. Furthermore we explicitly describe several recent trends of automaton like Grammar systems Distributed automata, Regulated rewriting, A. Lindenmayer systems, membrane systems a molecular model for computing and DNA computing ,natural computing ,Distributed computing, Contextual grammar