Metachronal waves in cellular automata: Cilia-like manipulation in actuator arrays

Georgilas, Ioannis; Adamatzky, Andrew; Barr, David; Dudek, Piotr; Melhuish, Chris

Abstract

Paramecium is covered by cilia. It uses the cilia to swim and transport food particles to its mouth. The cilia are synchronised into a collective action by propagating membrane potential and mechan- ical properties of their underlying membrane and the liquid phase en- vironment. The cilia inspired us to design and manufacture a hardware prototype of a massively parallel actuator array, emulated membrane po- tentials via a discrete excitable medium controller and mechanical prop- erties based on vibrating motors. The discrete excitable medium is a two-dimensional array of finite automata, where each automaton, or a cell, updates its state depending on states of its closest neighbours. A local interaction between the automata lead to emergence of propagating patterns, waves and gliders. The excitable medium is interfaced with an array of actuators. Patterns travelling on an automaton array manifest patterns of actuation travelling along the array of actuators. In com- puter models and laboratory experiments with hardware prototypes we imitate transportation of food towards mouth pore of the Paramecium. The hardware actuator arrays proposed could in future replace simple manipulators in demanding micro-scale application.

Citation

Georgilas, I., Adamatzky, A., Barr, D., Dudek, P., & Melhuish, C. (2013, September). Metachronal waves in cellular automata: Cilia-like manipulation in actuator arrays. Paper presented at VI International Workshop on Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization (NICSO 2013), Canterbury, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: VI International Workshop on Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization (NICSO 2013)
• Conference Location: Canterbury, UK
• Start Date: Sep 2, 2013
• End Date: Sep 4, 2013
• Publication Date: Sep 2, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 24, 2019
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: unconventional computing, physarum computing, cellular automata, multi-agent systems, natural collaboration
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1436056
• Publisher URL: http://nicso2013.org/index.html
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : VI International Workshop on Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization (NICSO 2013)