Oliver Guenther, Tad Hogg and Bernardo A. Huberman
Dynamics of Computation Group
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Palo Alto, CA 94304
guenther@parc.xerox.com,
hogg@parc.xerox.com,
huberman@parc.xerox.com
Xerox PARC technical report, 1997 (Los Alamos preprint cond-mat/9703078)
Embedding microscopic sensors, computers and actuators
into materials allows physical systems to actively monitor and respond
to their environments. This leads to the possibility of creating smart
matter, i.e., materials whose properties can be changed under program
control to suit varying constraints. A key difficulty in realizing the
potential of smart matter is developing the appropriate control
programs. We present a market-based multiagent solution to the
problem of maintaining a physical system near an unstable configuration,
a particularly challenging application for smart matter. This market
control leads to stability by focussing control forces in those parts of
the system where they are most needed. Moreover, it does so even when
some actuators fail to work and without requiring the agents to have a
detailed model of the physical system.
postcript
Also available as a Los Alamos preprint