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Biomorphic Software

Posted by michael on from the it's-alive dept.

CowboyRobot writes "From the molecular structure of spiders' silk to the efficient use of energy by insects and fish, we can learn many things from Nature and apply them to our engineering tasks. One thing that nature is particularly good at is the development of dynamic, self-organizing systems. Ken Lodding is a software engineer at NASA and is currently developing 'swarm algorithms for groups of wind-driven, remote exploratory vehicles'. He has a six-page article at Queue on 'biologically inspired computing', how to develop 'algorithmic design concepts distilled from biological systems, or processes.'"

4 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. The Biomorphic Goldfish Algorithm by march · · Score: 5, Funny

    10 SWIM AROUND TANK
    20 PRINT "LOOK A ROCK!"
    30 GOTO 10

  2. Re:Alien Engineers by tgrigsby · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's not so bad, really. The solar powered ones are still doing ok. The robots that eat the solar powered ones are flourishing as well. And there are even robots that eat those robots and so on. It's actually worked out alright, although the latest release of robots seems destined to eat every other robot and even themselves. But even those aren't the worst.

    It's the robots that attempt to charge people a licensing fee for using Linux that really burn me up.

    --
    *** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
  3. This is the way forward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Mark Tilden has noticed that machines that mimic biology take a lot less computation resources than machines that are strictly programmed.

    http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mark%2 0T ilden

    Trying to strictly control everything doesn't work well past a certain level of complexity. It's like capitalism vs communism or Cathedral vs Bazaar. I expect to see a lot more of this kind of project in the future.

  4. Re:Predator or Prey? by no+longer+myself · · Score: 5, Interesting
    How is this any scarier than "self-sustaining, swarms, of tiny" insects? Nature still has some of the scariest arsenals known to man. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find any mechination of man's that isn't handled better than those found in nature. We just haven't discovered effective ways of harnessing them.

    Mild example: Did you know that a goldfish can see infrared radiation? That fish can see warm bodies through the walls in your house, and perhaps even the neighbor's house. But it takes some pretty sophisticated equipment for a human to achieve that end. Good thing that fish don't talk. ;-)