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Morphological computation and morphological control: Steps towards a formal theory and applications


Füchslin, Rudolf Marcel; Dzyakanchuk, Andrej; Flumini, Dandolo; Hauser, Helmut; Hunt, Kenneth J; Luchsinger, Rolf H; Reller, Benedikt; Scheidegger, Stephan; Walker, Richard (2013). Morphological computation and morphological control: Steps towards a formal theory and applications. Artificial Life, 19(1):9-34.

Abstract

Morphological computation can be loosely defined as the exploitation of the shape, material properties, and physical dynamics of a physical system to improve the efficiency of a computation. Morphological control is the application of morphological computing to a control task. In its theoretical part, this article sharpens and extends these definitions by suggesting new formalized definitions and identifying areas in which the definitions we propose are still inadequate. We go on to describe three ongoing studies, in which we are applying morphological control to problems in medicine and in chemistry. The first involves an inflatable support system for patients with impaired movement, and is based on macroscopic physics and concepts already tested in robotics. The two other case studies (self-assembly of chemical micro-reactors; models of induced cell repair in radio-oncology) describe processes and devices on the micrometer scale, in which the emergent dynamics of the underlying physical system (e.g., phase transitions) are dominated by stochastic processes such as diffusion.

Abstract

Morphological computation can be loosely defined as the exploitation of the shape, material properties, and physical dynamics of a physical system to improve the efficiency of a computation. Morphological control is the application of morphological computing to a control task. In its theoretical part, this article sharpens and extends these definitions by suggesting new formalized definitions and identifying areas in which the definitions we propose are still inadequate. We go on to describe three ongoing studies, in which we are applying morphological control to problems in medicine and in chemistry. The first involves an inflatable support system for patients with impaired movement, and is based on macroscopic physics and concepts already tested in robotics. The two other case studies (self-assembly of chemical micro-reactors; models of induced cell repair in radio-oncology) describe processes and devices on the micrometer scale, in which the emergent dynamics of the underlying physical system (e.g., phase transitions) are dominated by stochastic processes such as diffusion.

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Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:03 Faculty of Economics > Department of Informatics
Dewey Decimal Classification:000 Computer science, knowledge & systems
Scopus Subject Areas:Life Sciences > General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Physical Sciences > Artificial Intelligence
Language:English
Date:2013
Deposited On:19 Mar 2013 08:11
Last Modified:23 Jan 2022 23:51
Publisher:MIT Press
ISSN:1064-5462
Additional Information:Copyright: MIT Press
OA Status:Green
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1162/ARTL_a_00079
PubMed ID:23186344
Other Identification Number:merlin-id:7817
  • Content: Published Version