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Embryomorphic Engineering: Emergent Innovation Through Evolutionary Development

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Morphogenetic Engineering

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

Abstract

Embryomorphic Engineering, a particular instance of Morphogenetic Engineering, takes its inspiration directly from biological development to create new robotic, software or network architectures by decentralized self-assembly of elementary agents. At its core, it combines three key principles of multicellular embryogenesis: chemical gradient diffusion (providing positional information to the agents), gene regulatory networks (triggering their differentiation into types, thus patterning), and cell division or aggregation (creating structural constraints, thus reshaping). This chapter illustrates the potential of Embryomorphic Engineering in different spaces: 2D/3D physical swarms, which can find applications in collective robotics, synthetic biology or nanotechnology; and \(n\)D graph topologies, which can find applications in distributed software and peer-to-peer techno-social networks. In all cases, the specific genotype shared by all the agents makes the phenotype’s complex architecture and function modular, programmable and reproducible.

This chapter is a condensed review version of references [16–22]

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Acknowledgments

Since the inception of Embryomorphic Engineering in 2006, R. Doursat’s positions have been funded by the Brain Lab and Department of Computer Science, University of Nevada, Reno; the Complex Systems Institute, Paris Ile-de-France (ISC-PIF), CNRS; and the Research Group in Biomimetics (GEB), Universidad de Málaga, Spain. C.A. Sánchez is a PhD student at GEB since 2011. R. Dordea and D. Fourquet are MSc students by Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. T. Kowaliw is a research scientist at ISC-PIF since 2010, supported by Région Ile-de-France and the French ANR project grant “SynBioTIC” 2010-BLAN-0307-03.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Complex Systems Institute Paris Ile-de-France (ISC-PIF), CNRS and Ecole Polytechnique, 57-59, rue Lhomond, 75005, Paris, France

    René Doursat & Taras Kowaliw

  2. Research Group in Biomimetics (GEB), Universidad de Málaga, C/ Severo Ochoa 4, PTA, 29590, Malaga, Spain

    Carlos Sánchez

  3. Erasmus Mundus Masters in Complex Systems Science (EMMCS), Ecole Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, 91120, Palaiseau, France

    René Doursat, Razvan Dordea & David Fourquet

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  1. René Doursat
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  2. Carlos Sánchez
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  3. Razvan Dordea
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  5. Taras Kowaliw
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Correspondence to René Doursat .

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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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Doursat, R., Sánchez, C., Dordea, R., Fourquet, D., Kowaliw, T. (2012). Embryomorphic Engineering: Emergent Innovation Through Evolutionary Development. 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_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33902-8_11

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