Abstract
In this paper, we present a novel model of autonomous floating agents which can self-assemble on a water surface. We focus especially on the shape of the agent, which is essential as a factor of aggregation but difficult to deal with as finite states. After several experiments, a unique self-assembling behavior was observed by exploiting several physical-level forces; 6 agents gather into a cluster and form a specific pattern, which is unique to the configuration. This is considered crucial to achieve morphogenesis of a multi-agent system, of which we think as a hierarchical aggregation. The results shown here provide a good starting point for speculation about the level of autonomy of a agent in the complex environment when the system creates a self-assembling pattern.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Schrodinger, E.: What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1944)
Maturana, H.R., Varela, F.G.: Autopoiesis and Cognition. Reidel, Dordrecht (1980)
Leiman, P.G., Kanamaru, S., Mesyanzhinov, V.V., Arisaka, F., Rossmann, M.G.: Structure and morphogenesis of bacteriophage t4. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 60, 2356–2370 (2003)
von Neumann, J.: Theory of Self-reproducing Automata. Univ. of Illinois Press, Illinois (1966)
Penrose, L.S.: Self-reproducing. Sci. Amer. 200(6), 105–114 (1959)
Fukuda, T., Kawauch, Y.: Cellular robotic system (cebot) as one of the realizations of self-organizing intelligent universal manipulator. In: Proceedings of the 1990 IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 662–667 (1990)
Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., Kokaji, S.: Self-assembling machine. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 441–448 (1994)
Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., Tomita, K.: Self-assembly method for mechanical structure. Artificial Life and Robotics 1, 111–115 (1997)
Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., Yoshida, E., Tomita, K., Kokaji, S.: A 3-D self-reconfigurable structure. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 432–439 (1998)
Murata, S., Tomita, K., Yoshida, E., Kurokawa, H., Kokaji, S.: Self-reconfigurable robot. In: Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS-6), pp. 911–917 (1999)
Castano, A., Behar, A., Will, P.M.: The conro modules for reconfigurable robots. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 7(4), 403–409 (2002)
Jorgensen, M.W., Ostergaard, E.H., Lund, H.H.: Modular atron: Modules for a self-reconfigurable robot. In: Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), vol. 2, pp. 2068–2073 (2004)
Langton, C.G.: Self-reproduction in cellular automata. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 10(1-2), 135–144 (1984)
Hosokawa, K., Shimoyama, I., Miura, H.: Dynamics of self-assembling systems: Analogy with chemical kinetics. Artificial Life 1(4), 413–427 (1994)
Hosokawa, K., Shimoyama, I., Miura, H.: 2-d micro-self-assembly using the surface tension of water. Sensors and Actuators A 57, 117–125 (1996)
Yim, M.: New locomotion gaits. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), vol. 3, pp. 2508–2514 (1994)
White, P., Kopanski, K., Lipson, H.: Stochastic self-reconfigurable cellular robotics. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), vol. 3, pp. 2888–2893 (2004)
White, P., Zykov, V., Bongard, J., Lipson, H.: Three dimensional stochastic reconfiguration of modular robots. In: Proceedings of Robotics Science and Systems, pp. 161–168 (2005)
Hamlin, G.J., Sanderson, A.C.: Tetrobot modular robotics: Prototype and experiments. In: Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS (1996)
Kotay, K., Rus, D., Vona, M., McGray, C.: The self-reconfiguring robotic molecule. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (IROS), vol. 1, pp. 424–431 (1998)
Rus, D., Vona, M.: Crystalline robots: Self-reconfiguration with compressible unit modules. Autonomous Robots 10(1), 107–124 (2001)
Bojinov, H., Casal, A., Hogg, T.: Multiagent control of self-reconfigurable robots. In: Proceedings of Fourth International Conference on MultiAgent Systems (ICMAS), pp. 143–150 (2000)
Detweiler, C., Vona, M., Kotay, K., Rus, D.: Hierarchical control for self-assembling mobile trusses with passive and active links. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 1483–1490 (2006)
Zykov, V., Mutilinaios, E., Adams, B., Lipson, H.: Self-reproducing machines. Nature 435(7039), 163–164 (2005)
Bhat, P., Kuffner, J., Goldstein, S., Srinivasa, S.: Hierarchical motion planning for self-reconfigurable modular robots. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 4108–4115 (2006)
Bishop, J., Burden, S., Klavins, E., Kreisberg, R., Malone, W., Napp, N., Nguyen, T.: Programmable parts: A demonstration of the grammatical approach to self-organization. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 3684–3691 (2005)
Shimizu, M., Ishiguro, A.: A modular robot that exploits a spontaneous connectivity control mechanism. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 2658–2663 (2005)
Griffith, S., Goldwater, D., Jacobson, J.: Robotics: Self-replication from random parts. Nature 437, 636 (2005)
Wolfe, D.B., Snead, A., Mao, C., Bowden, N.B., Whitesides, G.M.: Mesoscale self-assembly: Capillary interactions when positive and negitive menisci have similar amplitudes. Langmuir 19, 2206–2214 (2003)
Gracias, D.H., Tien, J., Breen, T.L., Hsu, C., Whitesides, G.M.: Forming electrical networks in three dimensions by self-assembly. Science 289, 1170–1172 (2000)
Boncheva, M., Ferrigno, R., Bruzewicz, D.A., Whitesides, G.M.: Plasticity in self-assembly: Templating generates functionally different circuits from a single precursor. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 42, 3368–3371 (2003)
Bohringer, K.F., Goldberg, K., Cohn, M., Howe, R., Pisano, A.: Parallel microassembly with electrostatic force fields. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, vol. 2, pp. 1204–1211 (1998)
Rothemund, P.W.K.: Folding dna to create nanoscale shapes and patterns. Nature 440(7082), 297–302 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Miyashita, S., Hadorn, M., Hotz, P.E. (2007). Water Floating Self-assembling Agents. In: Nguyen, N.T., Grzech, A., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds) Agent and Multi-Agent Systems: Technologies and Applications. KES-AMSTA 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4496. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72830-6_69
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72830-6_69
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-72829-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-72830-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)