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Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Modeling Kinematic Cellular Automata - Final report.

General Dynamics report, done for NASA. http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/ … .pdf]1.7Mb .pdf file of wich the first page depicts: "Self-replicating systems could be used as an ultimate form of in-situ resource utilization for terraforming planets."

This summary stolen from CRN:

General Dynamics examined the design of kinematic self-replicating robotic systems, which are physical machines that vary in size from a few cells to four-feet in diameter, and can build copies of themselves.

"We are very excited about this project because self-replication has the potential to lower the costs of building machines to that of growing potatoes. It could also make life-saving nanomedical devices affordable for everyone" said Tihamer Toth-Fejel, General Dynamics research engineer and principal investigator for the project. "We were surprised when our study suggested that a useful self-replicating system might be less complicated than a Pentium IV."

Less complicated than a PIV? Wowza.

John Creighton

Member

From: Nova Scotia, Canada

Registered: 2001-09-04

Posts: 2,401

Website

Re: Modeling Kinematic Cellular Automata - Final report.

That's quite a long papper.

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Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Modeling Kinematic Cellular Automata - Final report.

read it diagonal!

(As i did, too tired, not much time, should log off, in fact...)

Some interesting results, though, they don't start with nanostuff, but work out the requirements for workable KCA's on a macro scale, using software emulation, so nothing's been built yet (well, some interesting stuff has, of course...)

Next step: prototypes and then shrink the hell out of 'em! (if possible) So this way they get a working 'flowchart' of how KCA's could/should work/interact, before going nano (if ever)

(they're using FPGA's extensively to get workable blocks, not sure if that's cheating or not... heehee)