Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-plnhv Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-08-02T15:42:33.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A self-replicating programmable constructor in a kinematic simulation environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2011

William M Stevens
William M Stevens*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: william@stevens93.fsnet.co.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Cellular automata can model the information processing aspects of a self-replicating programmable constructing system (SRPC), but these models do not contain any notion of material parts and are poor at modelling features of a system that depend upon the motion and connectivity of its components. Physical systems with thousands of parts have the disadvantage that they are time consuming to develop. To overcome these limitations, a simulation environment is presented at a level of abstraction that models motion and connectivity. An SRPC which takes a disorganised collection of parts as its input has been implemented in this environment.

Keywords

self-replicationsimulation

Information

Type
Article
Information
Robotica , Volume 29 , Special Issue 1: Robotic Self-X Systems , January 2011 , pp. 153 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1.Bedau, M. (ed.), Artificial Life (MIT Press) http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/artl (visited on 7th March 2010).Google Scholar
2.Kirschner, D., Iwasa, Y. and Wolpert, L. (eds.), J. Theor. Biol. Elsevier, http://www.elsevier.com/locate/issn/0022-5193 (visited on 7th March 2010).Google Scholar
3.Freitas, R. A. and Gilbreath, W. P., “Advanced Automation for Space Missions,” (NASA Conference Publications) CP-2255 (N83-15348) (1982), http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/ (visited on 7th March 2010).Google Scholar
4.Sipper, M., “Fifty years of research on self-replication: An overview,” Artif. Life 4 (3), 237–257 (1998).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5.Freitas, R. A. and Merkle, R. C., Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines (Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, Texas, 2004), http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM.htm (visited on 7th March 2010).Google Scholar
6.Alberts, B., Bray, D., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K. and Watson, J. D., Molecular Biology of the Cell, 3rd ed. (Garland Publishing Inc, 1994), pp. 863–946.Google Scholar
7.von Neumann, J. and Burks, A. W., Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 1966).Google Scholar
8.Pesavento, U., “An implementatin of von Neumann's self-reproducing machine,” Artif. Life 2 (4), 337–354 (1995).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9.Nobili, R., “The cellular automata of John von Neumann,” http://www.pd.infn.it/rnobili/wjvn/index.htm (visited on 7th March 2010).Google Scholar
10.Buckley, W. R., “Signal Crossing Solutions in von Neumann self-replicating cellular automata,” Automata (Luniver Press, Frome, UK, 2008) pp. 453–501.Google Scholar
11.von Neumann, J., “Re-evaluation of the problems of complicated automata – problems of hierarchy and evolution (Fifth Illinois Lecture – December 1949),” Papers of John von Neumann on Computing and Computer Theory 477–490, MIT Press (1987).Google Scholar
12.McMullin, B., “John von Neumann and the Evolutionary Growth of Complexity: Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards. . .,” Artificial Life VII: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference 467–476, MIT Press (2000), http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/alife/bmcm-2000-01 (visited on 7th March 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13.Langton, C. G., “Self-reproduction in cellular automata,” Physica D 10, 135–144 (1984).Google Scholar
14.Thatcher, J. W., “Universality in the von Neumann cellular model : Technical Report 03105-30-T,” College of Engineering – Technical Reports, University of Michigan (1964), http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/7923 (visited on 7th March 2010).Google Scholar
15.Lee, C. Y., “A Turing Machine that prints its own code script,” Proceedings of the Symposium on the Mathematical Theory of Automata, Polytechnic Press, Brooklyn, New York (1963) pp. 155–164.Google Scholar
16.Laing, R., Automaton Self-Reference PhD Thesis (State University of New York, 1978), http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/6125 (visited on 7th March 2010).Google Scholar
17.Penrose, L. S. and Penrose, R., “A self-reproducing analogue,” Nature 179 (4571), 1183 (1957).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18.Penrose, L. S., “Self-reproducing machines,” Sci. Am. 200 (6), 105–114 (1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19.Griffith, S., Goldwater, D. and Jacobson, J. M., “Robotics: Self-replication from random parts,” Nature 437, 636 (2005).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
20.Smith, A., Turney, P. and Ewaschuk, R., “Self-replicating machines in continuous space with virtual physics,” Artif. Life 9, 21–40 (2003).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
21.Hutton, T., “Evolvable self-replicating molecules in an artificial chemistry,” Artif. Life 8 (4), 341–356 (2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22.Lee, K., Moses, M. and Chirikjian, G. S., “Robotic self-replication in structured environments: Physical demonstrations and complexity measures,” Int. J. Robot. Res. 27 (3–4), 387–401 (2008), http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/3-4/387 (visited on March 7, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23.Ewaschuk, R. and Turney, P., “Self-replication and self-assembly for manufacturing,” Artif. Life 12, 411–433 (2006).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
24.Tempesti, G., “A New Self-Reproducing Cellular Automaton Capable of Construction and Computation,” Proceedingsof the Third European Conference on Artificial Life, Springer (1995) pp. 555–563.Google Scholar
25.Carr, P. A. and Jewett, M. C., “Genome engineering,” Nature Biotechnol. 27 (12), 1151–1162 (2009).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
26.Burks, A. W., Essays on Cellular Automata (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 1970).Google Scholar
27.Moses, M., A Physical Prototype of a Self-Replicating Universal Constructor, Masters Thesis (Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2001).Google Scholar
28.Zykov, V., Mytilinaios, E., Adams, B. and Lipson, H., “Self-reproducing machines,” Nature 435, 163–164 (2005).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
29.Bowyer, A., “The Self-replicating Rapid Prototyper – Manufacturing for the masses,” Proceedings of the 8th National Conference on Rapid Design, Prototyping and Manufacturing Centre for Rapid Design and Manufacture, High Wycombe, June 2007.Google Scholar
30.Drexler, K. E., Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (Anchor Press/Doubleday, New York, 1986).Google Scholar
31.Drexler, K. E., Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1992).Google Scholar
32.Stevens, W. M., “Simulating self replicating machines,” J. Intell. Robot. Syst. 49 (2), 135–150 (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33.Arbib, M. A., “Machines which Compute and Construct,” In: Theories of Abstract Automata (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1969) pp. 355–361.Google Scholar
34.Gosper, W., “Exploiting regularities in large cellular spaces,” Physica D. 10 (1–2), 75–80 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
35.Stevens, W. M., “Parts closure in a kinematic self-replicating programmable constructor,” Artif. Life Robot. 13 (2), 508–511 (2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar