Using Artificial Physics to Control Agents

Abstract

We introduce a novel framework called "artificial physics", which provides distributed control of large collections of agents. The agents react to artificial forces that are motivated by natural physical laws. This framework provides an effective mechanism for achieving self-assembly, fault-tolerance, and self-repair. Examples are shown for various regular geometric configurations of agents. A further example demonstrates that self-assembly via distributed control can also perform distributed computation.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA478708

Entities

People

  • Diana F. Gordon
  • William M. Spears

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Aircrafts
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Assembly
  • Computations
  • Construction
  • Fabrication
  • Fault Tolerance
  • Information Operations
  • Mathematical Analysis
  • Micro Air Vehicles
  • Military Research
  • Particles
  • Physics
  • Self Assembly
  • Self Organizing Systems

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Control Systems Engineering.
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.