Programmable architectures that are complex and self-organized: from morphogenesis to engineering

Outside biological and social systems, natural pattern formation is essentially “simple ” and random, whereas complicated struc-tures are the product of human design. So far, the only self-organized (undesigned) and complex morphologies that we know are biological organisms and some agent societies. Can we export their principles of decentralization, self-repair and evolution to our machines, networks and other artificial con-structions? In particular, can an “embryomorphic ” engineering approach inspired by evo-devo solve the paradoxical challenge of planning autonomous systems? In this work, I wish to better understand and reproduce complex morphogenesis by investi-gating and combining its three fundamental ingredients: self-assembly and pattern formation under genetic regulation. The model I propose can be equivalently construed as (a) moving cellular automata, in which cell rearrangement is influenced by the pattern they form, or (b) heterogeneous collective motion, in which swarm agents differentiate into patterns according to their location. It offers a theoretical framework for exploring the causal and programmable link from genotype to phenotype