Evolution and development of complex computational systems using the paradigm of metabolic computing in Epigenetic Tracking

Alessandro Fontana
(Adam Mickiewicz University)
Borys Wróbel
(Adam Mickiewicz University)

Epigenetic Tracking (ET) is an Artificial Embryology system which allows for the evolution and development of large complex structures built from artificial cells. In terms of the number of cells, the complexity of the bodies generated with ET is comparable with the complexity of biological organisms. We have previously used ET to simulate the growth of multicellular bodies with arbitrary 3-dimensional shapes which perform computation using the paradigm of ``metabolic computing''. In this paper we investigate the memory capacity of such computational structures and analyse the trade-off between shape and computation. We now plan to build on these foundations to create a biologically-inspired model in which the encoding of the phenotype is efficient (in terms of the compactness of the genome) and evolvable in tasks involving non-trivial computation, robust to damage and capable of self-maintenance and self-repair.

In Alex Graudenzi, Giulio Caravagna, Giancarlo Mauri and Marco Antoniotti: Proceedings Wivace 2013 - Italian Workshop on Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation (Wivace 2013), Milan, Italy, July 1-2, 2013, Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science 130, pp. 27–34.
Published: 30th September 2013.

ArXived at: https://dx.doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.130.5 bibtex PDF
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