CANL: A Language for Cellular Automata Network Modeling

This paper discusses a new methodological approach for the modeling of complex physical systems and a new programming language to express it in a simple and user-friendly way. The methodological approach is based on a reduction process through which a model of a complex physical phenomenon can be decomposed in several components; each component is represented in terms of a cellular automaton. In order to implement this approach the Cellular Automata Network Language (Canl) has been developed to express the model decomposition by means of a network of cellular automata. In the paper some examples of the Canl language and some preliminary results relating to the current implementation status are reported.