Computing Reviews
Today's Issue Hot Topics Search Browse Recommended My Account Log In
Review Help
Search
Morphogenetic engineering : toward programmable complex systems
Doursat R., Sayama H., Michel O., Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated, New York, NY, 2013. 526 pp. Type: Book (978-3-642339-01-1)
Date Reviewed: Jul 25 2013

This book explores the decentralized formation of complex structures, a problem called morphogenetic engineering, which relates to the most vital process in biology. From a technological aspect, such problems arise in the construction of sophisticated robotic systems and artificial life structures.

Morphogenesis constitutes the central mystery of the science of nature, as elucidated in the celebrated What is life? by Erwin Schrödinger [1]. The purposeful development of organisms is contrary to the refinement of physical systems that tend to degrade in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. One of the pioneers of morphogenesis research, Alexander Gurwitsch, admitted that if there were only one type of organism, it might be reasonable to believe that it resulted from some physical process, but the awesome variety of life forms puts this in doubt, upholding the deep-rooted ideas of entelechy, vital force, and so on. According to Immanuel Kant, “It is absurd ... to hope that maybe another Newton may some day arise, to make intelligible to us even the genesis of but a blade of grass.” So, it might be sensible to assume that morphogenesis has to be enabled by a mechanistic course of action guided by some type of information processing.

The introduction is a general survey. The following 18 chapters are divided into four parts, according to the dynamical characteristics of their morphogenetic models: constructing, coalescing, developing, and generating.

Part 1, “Constructing,” features various morphogenetic robotic systems with small numbers of components. Chapter 2, by O’Grady, Christensen, and Dorigo, presents low- and higher-level control logics for self-assembly in swarm robots. Chapter 3, by Jin and Meng, reviews methodologies for morphogenetic robotics inspired by biological analogies. Chapter 4, by Liu and Winfield, presents distributed control strategies for a swarm of robots able to create different 3D symbiotic organisms. Chapter 5, by Werfel, reviews the design and implementation of collective constructions using only local information without explicit communication. Chapter 6, by Arbuckle and Requicha, focuses on a specific approach, dubbed active self-assembly, where robots execute the same program in a fully distributed fashion, building self-repairing structures. Chapter 7, by Bhalla and Bentley, proposes a bottom-up design methodology to create scalable self-assembling systems.

Part 2, “Coalescing,” deals with a great number of mobile agents exhibiting flocking behavior. Chapter 8, by Sayama, presents an artificial swarm chemistry model for designing spatiotemporal patterns of interacting particles using evolutionary methods. Chapter 9, by Bai and Breen, investigates chemotaxis-inspired cellular primitives for self-organizing shape formation. Chapter 10, by Nembrini and Winfield, describes decentralized control algorithms that relate local wireless links to swarm coherence in terms of aggregation and connectivity.

Part 3, “Developing,” concerns the cell-based models of biological morphogenesis. Chapter 11, by Doursat, Sánchez, Dordea, Fourquet, and Kowaliw, relates to the inspirations from biological development to create robotic architectures through the decentralized self-assembly of elementary agents. Chapter 12, by Beal, considers a new engineering approach to integrated growth based on functional blueprints specifying a system in terms of desired performance and means for incremental corrections. Chapter 13, by Kowaliw and Banzhaf, argues that complex systems engineering requires development-like conceptualization as an appropriate means to approach intricate problems. Chapter 14, by Cussat-Blanc, Pascalie, Mazac, Luda, and Duthen, proposes a developmental model with three simulation layers (chemical, hydrodynamic, and physical) in which cells are able to modify their individual shape and affect the overall morphology of the organism. Chapter 15, by Montagna and Viroli, describes a computational framework supporting the study of biological systems and the design of artificial systems capable of autonomously developing spatial structures with multilevel dynamics.

Part 4, “Generating,” refers to morphogenetic architectures generated by successive transformations expressed as grammars that can have potential applications as diverse as natural computing, robotics, computer graphics, or plant biology. Chapter 16, by Spicher, Michel, and Giavito, advocates a domain-specific language to overcome the difficulties of modeling and simulating morphogenetic processes. Chapter 17, by Lobo, Fernández, and Vico, describes evolutionary morphogenetic algorithms intended to solve certain functional problems. Chapter 18, by von Mammen, Phillips, Davison, Jamniczky, Hallgrímsson, and Jacob, presents ideas around swarm-based generative and developmental systems. Chapter 19, by Verdenal, Combes, and Escobar-Guitiérrez, stages a functional-structural 3D model of ryegrass showing collaboration between genetic programmability and self-organization rather than centralized control.

Emergent architectures under decentralized control promise to be the new standard for the future engineering of complex systems.

Reviewer:  Simon Berkovich Review #: CR141392 (1310-0880)
1) Schrödinger, E. What is life?. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1944.
Bookmark and Share
 
Applications And Expert Systems (I.2.1 )
 
 
Expert System Tools And Techniques (I.2.5 ... )
 
 
General (I.2.0 )
 
 
Life And Medical Sciences (J.3 )
 
Would you recommend this review?
yes
no
Other reviews under "Applications And Expert Systems": Date
Control structures in expert systems
Laurent J. Technology and Science of Informatics 3(3): 147-162, 1984. Type: Article
May 1 1985
Knowledge-based expert systems
Hayes-Roth F. Computer 17(10): 263-273, 1984. Type: Article
Jun 1 1985
Expert systems and fuzzy systems
Negoita C., Benjamin-Cummings Publ. Co., Inc., Redwood City, CA, 1985. Type: Book (9789780805368406)
Aug 1 1985
more...

E-Mail This Printer-Friendly
Send Your Comments
Contact Us
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.   Copyright 1999-2024 ThinkLoud®
Terms of Use
| Privacy Policy