Self-Organization in Nature and Machines

Abstract

Self-organization in the sense used in natural sciences means the spontaneous creation of patterns in space and/or time in dissipative systems consisting of many individual components. Central in this context is the notion of emergence meaning the spontaneous creation of structures or functions that are not directly explainable from the interactions between the constituents of the system. This chapter presents at first several examples of prominent self-organizing systems in nature with the aim to identify the underlying mechanisms. While self-organization in natural systems shares a common scheme, self-organization in machines is more diversified. An exception is swarm robotics because of the similarity to a system of many constituents interacting via local laws as encountered in physics (particles), biology (insects), and technology (robots). This chapter aims at providing a common basis for a translation of self-organization effects to single robots considered as complex physical systems consisting of many constituents that are constraining each other in an intensive manner.