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Morphogenetic Engineering pp 61–87Cite as

Morphogenetic Robotics: A New Paradigm for Designing Self-Organizing, Self-Reconfigurable and Self-Adaptive Robots

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Part of the book series: Understanding Complex Systems ((UCS))

Abstract

By morphogenetic robotics, we mean a class of methodologies for designing self-organizing, self-reconfigurable and self-adaptive robots inspired by biological morphogenesis. We categorize these methodologies into three areas, namely, morphogenetic swarm robotic systems, morphogenetic modular robots and morphogenetic co-design of body and brain for robots. We also discuss the relationship between morphogenetic robotics and a few closely related areas in robotics, such as epigenetic robotics, which focuses on cognitive development in robotic systems, and evolutionary robotics, which is concerned with evolutionary design of robot controllers. A few examples are provided to illustrate the main ideas underlying the morphogenetic approaches to robotics.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Hongliang Guo, Yuyang Zhang, Till Steiner, Lisa Schramm and Benjamin Inden for the illustrative examples used in this chapter. YJ is grateful to Edgar Körner and Bernhard Sendhoff for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK

    Yaochu Jin

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, 07030, USA

    Yan Meng

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  1. Yaochu Jin
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  2. Yan Meng
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Correspondence to Yaochu Jin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut des Systèmes Complexes, Paris Ile-de-France, Ecole Polytechnique, rue Lhomond 57-59, Paris, 75005, France

    René Doursat

  2. Binghamton University, Dept. Bioengineering, State University of New York, Binghamton, 13902-6000, New York, USA

    Hiroki Sayama

  3. Faculté des Sciences et Technologie, Lab. LACL-EA 4219, Université Paris-Est Créteil, avenue due Général de Gaulle 61, Créteil Cedex, 94010, France

    Olivier Michel

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Jin, Y., Meng, Y. (2012). Morphogenetic Robotics: A New Paradigm for Designing Self-Organizing, Self-Reconfigurable and Self-Adaptive Robots. In: Doursat, R., Sayama, H., Michel, O. (eds) Morphogenetic Engineering. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33902-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33902-8_3

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