Embryonics: A Microscopic View of the Molecular Architecture

The ontogenetic development of living beings suggests the design of a new kind of multicellular automaton endowed with novel quasi-biological properties: self-repair and self-replication. In the framework of the Embryonics embryonic electronics project, we have developed such an automaton. Its macroscopic architecture is de ned by three features: multicellular organization, cellular di erentiation, and cellular division which are described in a companion paper 5 . In order to cope with the complexity of real problems, the cell is itself decomposed into an array of smaller elements, the molecules, themselves de ned by three features: multimolecular organization, self-test and self-repair, and nally cellular self-replication, which is the basis of the macroscopic process of cellular division. These microscopic properties are illustrated by the example of an up-down counter. Finally, we propose a design methodology based on three successive con gurations of the basic molecular tissue, a n...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: ICES
• Authors: Daniel Mange, André Stauffer, Gianluca Tempesti
• Keywords: Cellular Di Erentiation, Cellular Division, Hardware, ICES 1998, Multicellular Automaton