Robust eletronic hardware system based on quorum sensing

Abstract. Electronic systems designed by man have a high level of complexity. This feature joined with its sequential operation has enabled the susceptibility to failures. In critical applications, this problem has been traditionally attacked duplicating the entire system (redundancy), and using a central control system. The term robust, word appearing in the formulation and in the title of this research, refers to the system's ability to withstand damage (usually physical) without losing its functionality or operation. This research proposes a different design scheme inspired by a mechanism of gene expression control, mechanism which is dependent on cell density, and has been recently observed and characterized in the field of systemic biology, in medical research regarding the efficacy of antibiotics; gene expression responsible for social behaviors of independent cells (bacteria) using extracellular signals. In the biological model, the cell-cell communication is performed through the exchange of chemical molecules called auto inducers. This process, called Quorum Sensing (QS), allows bacteria to monitor their environment for the presence of other bacteria, and thus, to respond to fluctuations in the number and/or species present. The great parallelism of this kind of systems involves a great robustness, since it avoids the sequential structure and dependence on a central control system. In this research, a mathematical model of this process (QS) is proposed, and then, the use of this model to design some initial electronic applications, specifically in the area of robotics is shown. This model starts with the overall system behavior, and then, it focuses in an individual-level model. This design strategy allows, from the application criteria, to define the rules of behavior of each bacterium, which are the same throughout the community, in a similar way as occurs with cellular automata. In principle, the algorithm can be used in signal processing problems as originally formulated in the proposal, if these problems are formulated as a search problem. In this research the algorithm is implemented in some problems of navigation of robots establishing the navigation route as the search problem. The research objective is not to create hardware with evolving capacities, but to propose a scheme of hardware design that reflects a redundant structure. This means formulating a behavioral algorithm that can be implemented functionally on a hardware (microprocessors, microcontrollers, CPLDs, FPGAs, robots, etc.). For this purpose, research proposes the use of different platforms on which different levels of collective bacterial structures are evaluated, while maintaining the premise of QS local communication.

• Autores: Martínez Sarmiento, Fredy Hernán
• Tipo de recurso: Doctoral thesis
• Fecha de publicación: 2017
• Institución: Universidad Nacional de Colombia
• Repositorio: Universidad Nacional de Colombia
• Idioma: spa
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.unal.edu.co:unal/60153
• Acceso en línea: https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/handle/unal/60153; http://bdigital.unal.edu.co/58163/
• Palabra clave: 57 Ciencias de la vida; Biología / Life sciences; biology; 62 Ingeniería y operaciones afines / Engineering; 66 Ingeniería química y Tecnologías relacionadas/ Chemical engineering; Biological behavior; Electronic design; Multiscale modeling; Quorum sensing; Robust systems; Comportamiento biológico; Diseño electrónico; Modelamiento multiescala; Sistemas robustos
• Rights: openAccess
• License: Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional