Proceedings of the 1992 IEEE/RSJ Intemational Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems Raleigh, NC_ July 7-10, 1992 The Behavioral Self-Organization of Nanorobots Using Local Rules M. Anthony Lewis an \d George A. Bekey * Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems University of Southern California. Los Angeles, CA 904 Abstract—The behavior of a colony of probots, with the common goal of destroying malignant tissue in the brain, is simulated. The behavior of each robot is gov- ‘erned by local rules of interaction with the environ- ‘ment, Each robot alone has a low probability of achiev. ing its purpose. Collectively, the aynergistic effect of cooperation significantly improves the likelihood of an individual acheving its purpose. ‘The behavioral strat- egy to such cooperation (by means of chemical eSiumunation signs) is described. The method ie lustrated by simulation results. 1. Dernopuction Since the early 1980's there has been a growing inter- cst in building small, micron scale, mechanical devices, Howe and Muller (1), re-introduced a 1960's technology for micro-machining that uses integrated circuit manuinc- turing techniques to manufacture miero-mechanical struc- tures, Since that time, a variety of devices have been fab- Ficated. ‘Those devices have included electrostatic: motors less that 100 microns in diameter, chemical sensing devices, accelerometers, miniature pumps, ete. It seems plausible that by combining the various real- izations of this technology in the appropriate manner, .- robotic devices could be fabricated. These y-robots would have, in common with all other robots, the following physi- cal elements 1) Actuators, 2) Sensors, and 3) Computation capability to couple sensing to action In principle, it soems possible to build a p-robot. How- ever, before a device can be realized in practice a number Of practical obstacles must be overcome. ‘These obstacles arise from the lack of: 1) A high energy-density power source 2) A method of building dimensional structures ‘and 3) A method of coordinated control. This paper ad- dresses the last problem, the need for a method of coordi- nated control of a large number of y-robots While single p-robots may find applications (e.g.. in medicine micro-teleoperators might gently manipulate cells), this would be an extension of conventional robotics. ‘The inherent power of the w-robot does not rest in the “This posarch was supported by the Kaprilian Technology In- novation Fund at the Univerity of Southern California, (0-7803-0737-2192503.00 199201EEE — 1089-0781 U.S. A, power of a single device. Tn general, any single de- ‘vice would probably have little consequence at the macro level. A change of consequence at the macto level can be achieved by the coordinated activity ofa large number of robots. A collection of these robots, coordinating their activities to achieve some purpose is called a p-colony. ‘Traditionally, zoboties deals with the behavior of one, or several robots. Generally, each device has a considerable amount of computing power and ean eas to'a coordinating host or other devices communication channels. These assumptions are invalid ‘when applied to a j-colony. Because ofits size, exch y-robot will only have a severely limited amount of computing capability. In addition, the bots will probably lack the hardware for high band- ‘width communication. Finally, p-colonies may be com- posed of thousands oF millions of y-robots. Implemen- {ation of communication between a host coordinator and several million, relatively unintelligent devices, is an im- practical task On the other hand, there are numerous biological ex: amples of cooperating ‘colonies’ of individual agents. Of Particular interest is the organizational behavior of grow- Ing neurites or neurons during neuro-development. These cells exhibit coordinated behavior of billions of eels, have little “computing power”, and require no host entity to eo- ordinate theit individual behavior. Neurites soem to achieve their task of organization by the following methods 1) directional control produced by chemical gradients 2) movement by differential adhesion along a substrate, 3) guidance by “guidepost’ or ‘pioneer’ neurons that usher growing neurons to the proper loca- tion, 4) metabolic competition between various branches ofthe same neurite [2, 8,4, 5} Thia system is capable of generating a highly organized computational structure from a handful of relatively sim- ple mechanisms, In the following section, a few of these Principles are adapted to create a structure for coordinate behavior of a -colony. By assuming a plausible form for each p-robot, based on an extension of current technology, fand incorporating rules of cooperation inspired by devel- ‘opmental neural biology and theoretical biology, it was possible to produce a simulation of a system that exhibits slobal cooperativity by using locally distributed rules ofbehavior, sensing and actuation. II, Previous ArProacues Previous approaches to the design of colonies of robotic agents have included work by Gasser [6]. Gasser’s simu- lated a number of agents whose task it was to block the progress of a single “enemy” agent. The game took place ‘on arectilinear grid. The agents were required to solve the problem through cooperation, without the use of a global ‘organizational mechanism, The global goal was achieved ‘through the intelligent coordination of a system of agents. ‘The task was designed as a test of distributed A.I. Gasser divided the problem solution into six phases: 1. Problem recognition- Detecting an enemy agent. 2. Enlisting allies- Gathering partners. 3. Forming a coordination framework- instantiating a set of behavior expectation and commitments. So ‘that each agent could trust the behavior ofa friendly agent. 4, Midgame Problem - Assigning roles and moving to- ward a goal configuration. 5. Endgame problem solving. Following a small set of rules on toward a known solution. 6. Termination- Recognition of a goal configuration. ‘The key problem in implementing this approach is that explicit communication is not practical between p-robots. In addition it seems to require a high number of coordi- nation rules and computational power, Tn the Artifical Life community there have been nu- merous simulation of simple agents, typically operating on a grid. ‘The progenitor of this line of simulation was Conway's Game of Life program (7). In this simulation, played on a cartesian grid, the Tie’ or “death’ of a cell was ‘determined by the number of similar agents in the eight nearest squares. Ifexactly three of a cals’ eight neighbors are “ou”, then the cell will tura on. It will turn “off if the number of “on” neighbors drops below two (it dies of loneliness). If the number of neighbors rises above three, the cell dics also (this time of overcrowding) Although Conway's game is interesting since communi- cation seems to be implicit between agents, the cells lack fan essential element of robot devices: the ability to move and manipulate the environment, IIL, Parser Aprroacu [Before forming general principles, it was necessary to explore the behavior of an example’system. ‘The chosen system is composed of a goal, agent specification, and a set of behavior rules that will use the agent specification to achieve the desired goal A. p-Colony Goal Description ‘The selected task domain is brain surgery. Specifically, it requires the removal of malignant brain tissue. In ad~ dition to the removal of tumor cells, neighboring healthy calls should be preserved. Removal of tumor tissue by conventional means is dif ficult for the following reasons * 1) Tt ean be impossible to cleasly delineate healthy tissue fiom the tumer mass, specially at the boundary areas 2) Certain tumors may ‘wrap around arteries, increasing the risk of the operation 53) Nol all tumors form a closed compact set; tumors may be in a star burst shape. In this case the removal of each ‘tumor cell with minimal healthy tissue damage would be impossible, 4) Ifthe tumor delineation is determined by imaging methods, the relative location of the Lumnor may hange as the brain collapses when tissue is removed. For the purpose of this simulation, the tumor removal goal has been abstracted. ‘The problem has been reduced from a 8d space to 2d. ‘The tumor is apsumed to be ‘relatively’ compact and the injection site of the p-robots is assumed to be near, but not ‘in’ the tumor. Typically the injection site is about 2-3 tumor diameters away B. Hypothesized p-Robot Description Neurons in the brain are typically on the order of 10 microns in size. ‘Thus the entire p-robot must about ant Grder of magnitude smaller than the typical electrostatic ‘motor machined today [8]. ‘This moy not be an insur mountable obstacle, New techniques may involve Using ‘micro machines to assemble other devices, atom by atom. Device may be built on the nano-level, ie. in the realm of 10- meters, or orders of magnitude smaller than brain cells (9, 1], ‘As noted above each p-tobot must have actuation, sens- ing and computing capability. The actuation mechanism should allow the y-robot to move in between nerve cell ‘This action would be similar to the the action of growing nerve cells, The growth cone (leading tip) of a growing neuron emits hyaluronic acid. Upon contact with water, teach molecule expands to 10K times ite normal size, ‘This expansion pushes adjacent cella apart, allowing passage of the growing neuron, By using » micro-pump, itis euvi- sioned thal this or a similar chemical could be emitted ahead of the moving perobot Motion of growing neurons is often achieved by differ- ential adhesion [8,2]. ‘That is, the cell can control its ‘uhesion to the neighboring cell substrate. To emulate this action, a linear actuator can be built using micro- machining technology [11]. The actuator surface would be coated with a hypothetical substance called hCAM. This substance is a cell adhesion molecule that coata the fctuation surfaces of the y-robot, ‘The unique feature of hCAM is that the adhesion can be controlled by electrical or thermal means. If the hCAM is a protein molecule, The diameter might be pedantically described a the amallat circle that encompass the cline tumoY mass 1334‘thermal heating will eause a conformational change in the molecule leading to temporary loss of adhesion proper- ties, As the protein cools, it would go back to its original conformation ‘To push the s-robot forward, the adhesion is engaged and the y-robot pushes linearly’ against the adjacent cell walls. Adhesion is then canceled and the actuator moves ahead of the robot. This action is repeated at pechaps thousands of times per second. ‘To coordinate behavior, it is essential that the p-robots communicate. It is proposed that the y-robots commu- nicate by benign chemical messengers. A chemical pallet would be able to paint the immediate surrounding of the pe-robot with a reflection of its internal state, ‘These chem- icals can be custom designed molecules that could bind to appropriate receptor in adjacent y-robots. There are two features needed to make this system work, an electronic “olfactory” sensor and a mechanical pump. Olfactory sen- sors based on resonators coated with a molecular comple- ‘ment of the molecule to be detected have been described. ‘A micro-electronic purap has also been described in [12] In addition to a mechanism for communicating between se-robots, each p-robot will have a capability for detecting. a tumor” It is presumed that the tumor cell will have a different protein coat that can be detected. CC. Behavioral Strategy ‘The p-robots are assumed to have a tumor’ detector which can differentiate between the cells to be attacked and normal (friendly) cells. ‘The pe-robots are assumed to be injected near the site of the tumor. The j-robots ‘wander in a random walk until they encounter the tumor. Upon contact, the p-robots will paint a chemical marker, called "CHEM-1’, over the immediate region. CHEM. serves to attract other p-robots. Tis assumed that 'CHEM-1’ will be metabolized by the body and will not travel indefinitely through the cortical region. A mechanism is needed to allow a signal to be broadcast over a long distance. This is done by the use of guidepostor pioneer p-robots, with inspiration taken from developmental neurobiology (3, 2] Guidepost je-robots work in the following way: As p- robots contact. the outer limits of detectability of the CHEM-1 gradient, the majority will begin to move up the concentration gradient in a literal hill-climbing strat- egy. A few, however, will differentiate into guidepost robots, ‘These y-robots stop all motion and begin to se- crete CHEM-2. In a sense they are repeater stations for CHEM-1. As new -tobots approach CHEM2 a similar differentiation process occurs, with the differentiated y- robots now secreting CHEM-3. The number of p-robots that differentiate is determined approximately by pnt, where pis the probability of differ entiating and n ix the total number of prrobote, and ¢ is tthe number of time steps from time 0. ‘The probability determines the eflicency of convergence on the tumor. If is too high, too many rrobots will be dedicated to the ‘communication support role. If pis too low, the s-robots will not be able to organize over long distances. For the purpose of the simulation, p was selected to be p— 0.01, which gave good results D. Behavioral Rules As noted above, it is anticipated that each y-robot will have limited computational capability. Therefore, the de- scription of behavior should be as simple as possible. In ‘accord with this, we use a reactive architecture. Precepts (Cf chemical gradients) will cause release a behavior. In addition behaviors with higher precedence can suppress the expression of other behaviors. ‘This isin a similar style te the teste proposed and implemented by Broks 13) ‘The behavior of each individual p-robot is determined by asimpleset of reactive rules. ‘These rules determine the behavior of the w-robot at any instant. The rule selection by the state of the input sensors and the precedence of the rule. ‘These rules can be implemented as a non-deterministic rule based system. ‘The rule predicates are evaluated in sequential order. When a rule's predicate is satisfied, the action described by the rule instantiated, The set of rules that the p-robot execute are called its program rule sot. The program rule set may change dur- ing at a specific time or under a specific condition. For example, while the j-colony is hunting tumor cells, a "eat ‘tumor” (ET) rule set would be instantiated. After a set amount of time the rules for "go back to injection site” (GBIS) would be activated. ‘The program rule set for ET are given below: 1. IP There is no chemical Markers and No Tumor THEN Do a random Walk 2.1F A Tumor is detected THEN Destroy the cell, Differentiate, ‘and Broadcast CHEM-1; w/prob 1 3.IF The Mag. of CHEM-t is greater than @ THEN Do a random Walk AIF CHEM-1 is detected THEN Move up the grad. of CHEM-1; w/prob p or Differentiate end Broadcast CHEM-£; ‘u/prob(t-p) 5.IF CHEM-2 is detected ‘THEN Move up the grad. of CHEM-2; w/prob p or Differentiate ond Broadcast CHEM-3; w/prob(t-p) 6.IF — CHEM-3 is detected THEN Move up the grad. of CHEM-2; w/prob 1 Rule 1 executes a random walk ifmeither the tumor, nor ‘any chemical signal is present. Rule 2 is activated when 1335