Centralised connectivity-preserving transformations for programmable matter: A minimal seed approach



Connor, Matthew, Michail, Othon ORCID: 0000-0002-6234-3960 and Potapov, Igor
(2022) Centralised connectivity-preserving transformations for programmable matter: A minimal seed approach. In: ALGOSENSORS, 2021-9-9 - 2021-9-10.

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Abstract

We study a model of programmable matter systems consisting of n devices lying on a 2-dimensional square grid which are able to perform the minimal mechanical operation of rotating around each other. The goal is to transform an initial shape A into a target shape B. We investigate the class of shapes which can be constructed in such a scenario under the additional constraint of maintaining global connectivity at all times. We focus on the scenario of transforming nice shapes, a class of shapes consisting of a central line L where for all nodes u in S either u∈L or u is connected to L by a line of nodes perpendicular to L. We prove that by introducing a minimal 3-node seed it is possible for the canonical shape of a line of n nodes to be transformed into a nice shape of n−1 nodes. We use this to show that a 4-node seed enables the transformation of nice shapes of size n into any other nice shape of size n in O(n2) time. We leave as an open problem the expansion of the class of shapes which can be constructed using such a seed to include those derived from nice shapes.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Unspecified)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Programmable matter, Transformation, Reconfigurable robotics, Shape formation, Centralised algorithms
Divisions: Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 02 Sep 2021 08:12
Last Modified: 15 Mar 2024 07:12
DOI: 10.1016/j.tcs.2022.09.016
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3135615