Abstract: |
We propose and implement a new variant of cellular automata incorporating physical rules, based largely on the nonuniform cellular automata type first investigated by Sipper [10]. The new automata rules are designed to be realizable in an actual electromechanical robotic module called a “molecube,” which was built by us [6][14] and shown empirically to have self-replicating ability. The spontaneous and continuous emergence of simple self-replication is demonstrated using this automata platform. In addition, qualitative differences are observed between global state mutation and reproductive mutation. |
