Self-Organizing Systems, 1963

by Unknown

Conceptual Design of Self-Organizing Machines

P. A. Kleyn

Northrop Nortronics
Systems Support Department
Anaheim, California

Self-organization is defined and several examples which motivate this definition are presented. The significance of this definition is explored by comparison with the metrization problem discussed in the companion paper [(1)] and it is seen that self-organization requires decomposing the space representing the environment. In the absence of a priori knowledge of the environment, the self-organizing machine must resort to a sequence of projections on unit spheres to effect this decomposition. Such a sequence of projections can be provided by repeated use of a nilpotent projection operator (NPO). An analog computer mechanization of one such NPO is discussed and the signal processing behavior of the NPO is presented in detail using the Euclidean geometrical representation of the metrizable topology provided in the companion paper. Self-organizing systems using multiple NPO’s are discussed and current areas of research are identified.