Generalization of elementary cellular automata to a higher dimension family including the BML traffic model

Abstract

A general family of $D$-dimensional, $K$-state cellular automata is proposed where the update rule is sequentially applied in each dimension. This includes the Biham--Middleton--Levine traffic model, which is a 2D cellular automaton with 3 states. Using computer simulations, we discover new properties of intermediate states for the BML model. We present some new 2D, 3-state cellular automata belonging to this family with application to percolation, annealing, biological membranes, and more. Many of these models exhibit sharp phase transitions, self organization, and interesting patterns.