Evolving Physical Self-assembling Systems in Two-Dimensions

Primarily top-down design methodologies have been used to create physical self-assembling systems. As the sophistication of these systems increases, it will be more challenging to deploy top-down design, due to self-assembly being an algorithmically NP-complete problem. Alternatively, we present a nature-inspired approach incorporating evolutionary computing, to couple bottom-up construction (self-assembly) with bottom-up design (evolution). We also present two experiments where evolved virtual component sets are fabricated using rapid prototyping and placed on the surface of an orbital shaking tray, their environment. The successful results demonstrate how this approach can be used for evolving physical self-assembling systems in two-dimensions.