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Brief Communications

Nature 437, 636 (29 September 2005) | doi:10.1038/437636a; Published online 28 September 2005

Open Innovation Challenges

Robotics: Self-replication from random parts

Saul Griffith1, Dan Goldwater1 & Joseph M. Jacobson1

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Autonomously self-replicating machines have long caught the imagination1, 2, 3 but have yet to acquire the sophistication of biological systems, which assemble structures from disordered building blocks. Here we describe the autonomous self-replication of a reconfigurable string of parts from randomly positioned input components. Such components, if suitably miniaturized and mass-produced, could constitute self-fabricating systems whose assembly is brought about by the parts themselves.

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