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Summary. Membrane computing investigates models of computation inspired by certain features of biological cells. To exploit the performance advantage of the large-scale parallelism of membrane computing models, it is necessary to execute them on a parallel computing platform. However, it is an open question whether it is feasible to develop a parallel computing platform for membrane computing applications that significantly outperforms equivalent sequential computing platforms while still achieving acceptable flexibility and scalability. To move closer to an answer to this question, we have investigated a novel approach to the development of a parallel computing platform for membrane computing applications that has the potential to deliver a good balance between performance, flexibility and scalability. This approach involves the use of reconfigurable hardware and an intelligent software component that is able to configure the hardware to suit the specific properties of the membrane computing model to be executed. We have developed a prototype computing platform called Reconfig-P based on the approach. Reconfig-P is the first computing platform of its type to implement parallelism at both the system and region levels. In this paper, we describe Reconfig-P and evaluate its performance, flexibility and scalability. Theoretical and empirical results suggest that the implementation approach on which Reconfig-P is based is a viable means of attaining a good balance between performance, flexibility and scalability in a parallel computing platform for membrane computing applications.

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