Amorphous computing is the development of organizational principles and programming languages for obtaining coherent behavior from the cooperation of myriads of unreliable parts that are interconnected in unknown, irregular, and time-varying ways. The impetus for amorphous computing comes from developments in microfabrication and fundamental biology, each of which is the basis of a kernel technology that makes it possible to build or grow huge numbers of almost-identical information-processing units at almost no cost. This paper sets out a research agenda for realizing the potential of amorphous computing and surveys some initial progress, both in programming and in fabrication. We describe some approaches to programming amorphous systems, which are inspired by metaphors from biology and physics. We also present the basic ideas of cellular computing, an approach to constructing digital-logic circuits within living cells by representing logic levels by concentrations DNA-bin...

Sensor networks present a number of novel programming challenges for application developers. Their inherent limitations of computational power, communication bandwidth, and energy demand new approaches to programming that shield the developer from low-level details of resource management, concurrency, and in-network processing. We argue that sensor networks should be programmed at the global level, allowing the compiler to automatically generate nodal behaviors from a high-level specification of the network’s global behavior. This paper presents the design of a functional macroprogramming language for sensor networks, called Regiment. The essential data model in Regiment is based on region streams, which represent spatially distributed, time-varying collections of node state. A region stream might represent the set of sensor values across all nodes in an area or the aggregation of sensor values within that area. Regiment is a purely functional language, which gives the compiler considerable leeway in terms of realizing region stream operations across sensor nodes and exploiting redundancy within the network. We describe the initial design and implementation of Regiment, including a compiler that transforms a macroprogram into an efficient nodal program based on a token machine. We present a progresssion of simple programs that illustrate the power of Regiment to succinctly represent robust, adaptive sensor network applications.

The long term goal is to create a ‘paintable computer ’ — an instance of several thousand copies of a single integrated circuit (IC), each the size of a large sand kernel, uniformly distributed in a semi-viscous medium and applied to a surface like paint. Each IC contains an embedded micro, memory and a wireless transceiver in a 4 mm 2 package, is internally clocked, and communicates locally. While the hardware presents its own challenges, the deeper problems lie in the programming model. In this research, we develop a candidate programming model and qualify its performance over a set of representative applications. Work begins with a hardware reference model for the individual computing particles. A first cut programming model is proposed and initial applications are developed. Results from the applications are fed back to drive an iterative refinement of the programming model, followed by a succeeding rounds of application development. Preliminary thesis statement: “A programming model employing a selforganizing ecology of mobile code fragments supports a variety of useful applications on a paintable computer

This paper presents a programming language that specifies a robust process for shape formation on a sheet of identicallyprogrammed agents, by combining local organization primitives from epithelial cell morphogenesis and Drosophila cell differentiation with combination rules from geometry. This work represents a significantly different approach to the design of self-organizing systems: the desired global shape is specified using an abstract geometry-based language, and the agent program is directly compiled from the global specification. The resulting self-assembly process is extremely reliable in the face of random agent distributions, random agent death and varying agent numbers, without relying on global coordinates or centralized control.

Sensor networks can be considered distributed computing platforms with many severe constraints including limited CPU speed, memory size, power, and bandwidth. Individual nodes in sensor networks are typically unreliable and the network topology dynamically changes, possibly frequently. Sensor networks can also be considered a form of ad hoc network. However, here also many constraints in sensor networks are different or more severe. Sensor networks also differ because of their tight interaction with the physical environment via sensors and actuators. Due to all of these differences many solutions developed for general distributed computing platforms and for ad hoc networks cannot be applied to sensor networks. Many new and exciting research challenges exist. This paper discusses the state of the art and presents the key research challenges to be solved, some with initial solutions or approaches.

. Multicellular organisms create complex patterned structures from identical, unreliable components. Learning how to engineer such robust behavior is important to both an improved understanding of computer science and to a better understanding of the natural developmental process. Earlier work by our colleagues and ourselves on amorphous computing demonstrates in simulation how one might build complex patterned behavior in this way. This work reports on our first e#orts to engineer microbial cells to exhibit this kind of multicellular pattern directed behavior. We describe a specific natural system, the Lux operon of Vibrio fischeri, which exhibits density dependent behavior using a well characterized set of genetic components. We have isolated, sequenced, and used these components to engineer intercellular communication mechanisms between living bacterial cells. In combination with digitally controlled intracellular genetic circuits, we believe this work allows us to beg...

We present a programming methodology for self-assembling complex structures from vast numbers of locally-interacting identically-programmed agents, using techniques inspired by developmental biology. We demonstrate this approach through two examples: shape formation on a reconfigurable sheet, and self-assembling two dimensional structures through replication. In each case, the desired global shape is specified using an abstract geometry-based language, and the agent program is directly compiled from the global specification. The resulting

Abstract. Amorphous computing considers the problem of controlling millions of spatially distributed unreliable devices which communicate only with nearby neighbors. To program such a system, we need a highlevel description language for desired global behaviors, and a system to compile such descriptions into locally executing code which robustly creates and maintains the desired global behavior. I survey existing amorphous computing primitives and give desiderata for a language describing computation on an amorphous computer. I then bring these together in Amorphous Medium Language, which computes on an amorphous computer as though it were a space-filling computational medium. 1

related. I am confident that at their interface great discoveries await those who seek them. ” (L.Adleman, [3]) 1. FOREWORD Natural computing is the field of research that investigates models and computational techniques inspired by nature and, dually, attempts to understand the world around us in terms of information processing. It is a highly interdisciplinary field that connects the natural sciences with computing science, both at the level of information technology and at the level of fundamental research, [98]. As a matter of fact, natural computing areas and topics come in many flavours, including pure theoretical research, algorithms and software applications, as well as biology, chemistry and physics experimental laboratory research. In this review we describe computing paradigms abstracted

Fault-tolerance may be expected to gain more and more importance in the future. Extremely harsh and changing environments, like outer space, already force us to think about this issue today, but issues like production of large-scale devices might put the same requirements on the devices of tomorrow.