This paper presents our work towards a decentralized reconfiguration strategy for self-reconfiguring modular robots, assembling furniture-like structures from Roombots (RB) metamodules. We explore how reconfiguration by locomotion from a configuration A to a configuration B can be controlled in a distributed fashion. This is done using Roombots metamodules-two Roombots modules connected serially-that use broadcast signals, lookup tables of their movement space, assumptions about their neighborhood, and connections to a structured surface to collectively build desired structures without the need of a centralized planner.
Abstract. This article describes an implementation of a basic multiprocessor system that exhibits replication and differentiation abilities on the POEtic tissue, a programmable hardware designed for bio-inspired applications [1,2] . As for a living organism, whose existence starts with only one cell that first divides, our system begins with only one totipotent processor, able to implement any of the cells required by the final organism, which can also fully replicate itself, using the functionalities of the POEtic substrate. Then, analogously to the cells in a developing organism, our just replicated totipotent processors differentiate in order to execute their specific part of the complete organism functionality. In particular, we will present a working realization using MOVE processors whose instructions define the flow of data rather than the operations to be executed [3]. It starts with one basic MOVE processor that first replicates itself three times; the four resulting processors then differentiate and connect together to implement a multi-processor modulus-60 counter.
The multicellular structure of biological organisms and the interpretation in each of their cells of a chemical program (the DNA string or genome) is the source of inspiration for the Embryonics (embryonic electronics) project, whose final objective is the design of highly robust integrated circuits, endowed with properties usually associated with the living world: self-repair and self-replication. In this article, we provide an overview of our latest research in the domain of the self-replication of processing elements within a programmable logic substrate, a key prerequisite for achieving system-level fault tolerance in our bio-inspired approach.
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