Continuing our work on active, or robotic, self-assembly (see the entry below this one) we now have demonstrated that we can build arbitrary shapes in the plane by using a swarm of purely reactive (hence stateless) robots. Given the desired shape, we can automatically compile it into the rules which the robots use to build it. Furthermore, the process is self-healing and self-reproducing (to a limited extent).
A video simulation is available by clicking below. It shows a swarm of reactive robots constructing a key-like object. At an intermediate point in the construction, the shape is broken into three pieces (by an evil experimenter…) and the pieces are moved apart. The process continues and from each piece, a complete structure emerges. This shows that this particular brand of self-assembly is self-healing and self-reproducing in a manner roughly akin to mitosis.
References:
D. J. Arbuckle and A. A. G. Requicha, “Self-assembly and self-repair of arbitrary shapes by a swarm of reactive robots: algorithms and simulations“, Autonomous Robots, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 197-211, February 2010, published online November 7, 2009. (Published also as Tech. Rept. AR-07, Laboratory for Molecular Robotics, University of Southern California, 2007.)
D. J. Arbuckle and A. A. G. Requicha, “Self-repairing Self-assembled Structures“, Proc. IEEE Int’l Conf. on Robotics & Automation (ICRA ’06), Orlando, FL, pp. 4288-4290, May 15-19, 2006.
A. A. G. Requicha and D. J. Arbuckle, “CAD/CAM for nanoscale self-assembly“, IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 88-91, March/April 2006.
D. Arbuckle and A. A. G. Requicha, “”Shape Restoration by Active Self-Assembly, Int’l Symp. on Robotics and Automation, Queretaro, Mexico, August 25-27, 2004.
Download video. This is a .avi file about 15 MB long.
