Robotics: self-replication from random parts.
Autonomously self-replicating machines have long caught the imagination but have yet to acquire the sophistication of biological systems, which assemble structures from disordered building blocks. Here we describe the autonomous self-replication of a reconfigurable string of parts from randomly positioned input components. Such components, if suitably miniaturized and mass-produced, could constitute self-fabricating systems whose assembly is brought about by the parts themselves.
Griffith
Saul
S
Center for Bits and Atoms, MIT Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Goldwater
Dan
D
Jacobson
Joseph M
JM
D000465:Algorithms; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D003116:Color; D004261:DNA Replication; D007700:Kinetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*