Towards adaptive multi-robot systems: self-organization and self-adaptation

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The development of complex systems ensembles that operate in uncertain environments is a major challenge. The reason for this is that system designers are not able to fully specify the system during specification and development and before it is being deployed. Natural swarm systems enjoy similar characteristics, yet, being self-adaptive and being able to self-organize, these systems show beneficial emergent behaviour. Similar concepts can be extremely helpful for artificial systems, especially when it comes to multi-robot scenarios, which require such solution in order to be applicable to highly uncertain real world application. In this article, we present a comprehensive overview over state-of-the-art solutions in emergent systems, self-organization, self-adaptation, and robotics. We discuss these approaches in the light of a framework for multi-robot systems and identify similarities, differences missing links and open gaps that have to be addressed in order to make this framework possible

Self-organization in urban development: towards a new perspective on spatial planning

To date, participatory spatial planning has produced disappointing results. We argue that one reason is that time and again participatory planning proposals remain controlled by public government, and that public government seems not to be very adaptive to initiatives that emerge from the dynamics of civil society itself. To find out why and how citizens could and would be motivated to contribute out of their own motivation to urban development, we propose turning the focus outside-in, instead of inside-out. In this article, we therefore introduce the notion of self-organization, referring to initiatives that originate in civil society itself, via autonomous community-based networks of citizens outside government control which participate in developing the ‘urban fabric’ too. We discuss some examples of self-organization and draw preliminary conclusions of the concept’s usefulness for the theory and practice of spatial planning

Self-Organization and Clustered Control in the Toyota Group: Lessons from the Aisin Fire

Japanese supplier management practices have in past years attracted much attention in the US and Europe. Several aspects of these practices still remain relatively neglected, however, such as collaborative relationships between suppliers themselves. In this paper we argue that a recent incident involving Toyota and its supplier network reveals the importance of these relationships and their implications for firm competitiveness. We describe how Toyota suppliers effectively and rapidly organized a group-wide effort to restore production of a key brake-related part, whose supply was suddenly interrupted as a result of a fire at a supplier's plant. We conclude that this remarkable group-wide effort was a function of shared capabilities within Toyota's supplier network. These capabilities lead to effective responses to major crises like this one, and in normal times to decentralized and group-wide problemsolving permitting continuous improvements in firm and group performance, under the omnipresent yet largely invisible leadership of Toyota

Cybernetics in Economics

In 1965 Kyn and Pelikan published in Czechoslovakia the book “Kybernetika v Ekonomii” (Cybernetics in Economics). This article, which was published in Prague in English gives the summary and discusses some more important ideas of that book. The book was quite successful and influenced significantly the way economists were at that time looking at the centrally planned economic system imported from the Soviet Union. The main ideas were: a) the crucial role of information in coordination of economic activities; b) the requirements of the appropriate decision making rules; c) the refutation of the prevailing negative views of randomness and spontaneity; d) the role of “natural selection” for processes of self-organization in economic systems. This provided an implicit critique of the over-centralized command economy and indicated the necessity to revive the market economy.Economic Cybernetics; Information; Decission-making; Planning; Selforganization;

Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robot Systems

The field of modular self-reconfigurable robotic systems addresses the design, fabrication, motion planning, and control of autonomous kinematic machines with variable morphology. Modular self-reconfigurable systems have the promise of making significant technological advances to the field of robotics in general. Their promise of high versatility, high value, and high robustness may lead to a radical change in automation. Currently, a number of researchers have been addressing many of the challenges. While some progress has been made, it is clear that many challenges still exist. By illustrating several of the outstanding issues as grand challenges that have been collaboratively written by a large number of researchers in this field, this article has shown several of the key directions for the future of this growing fiel

Organic Design of Massively Distributed Systems: A Complex Networks Perspective

The vision of Organic Computing addresses challenges that arise in the design of future information systems that are comprised of numerous, heterogeneous, resource-constrained and error-prone components or devices. Here, the notion organic particularly highlights the idea that, in order to be manageable, such systems should exhibit self-organization, self-adaptation and self-healing characteristics similar to those of biological systems. In recent years, the principles underlying many of the interesting characteristics of natural systems have been investigated from the perspective of complex systems science, particularly using the conceptual framework of statistical physics and statistical mechanics. In this article, we review some of the interesting relations between statistical physics and networked systems and discuss applications in the engineering of organic networked computing systems with predictable, quantifiable and controllable self-* properties.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, preprint of submission to Informatik-Spektrum published by Springe

08141 Abstracts Collection -- Organic Computing - Controlled Self-organization

From March 30th to April 4th 2008, the Dagstuhl Seminar 08141 "Organic Computing - Controlled Self-organization"\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available