Robotics: self-replication from random parts.
Autonomously self-replicating machines have long caught the imagination 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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