Towards Physarum robots: computing and manipulating on water surface

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of Physarum polycephalum plasmodium on water surfaces for biological computation and manipulation, demonstrating its potential for creating amorphous biological robots.

Contribution

It presents novel experiments showing Physarum's ability to compute spanning trees and manipulate objects on water, advancing bio-robotic applications.

Findings

Physarum can compute basic spanning trees on water surface

Physarum can manipulate lightweight objects

Results suggest potential for amorphous biological robots

Abstract

Plasmodium of Physarym polycephalum is an ideal biological substrate for implementing concurrent and parallel computation, including combinatorial geometry and optimization on graphs. We report results of scoping experiments on Physarum computing in conditions of minimal friction, on the water surface. We show that plasmodium of Physarum is capable for computing a basic spanning trees and manipulating of light-weight objects. We speculate that our results pave the pathways towards design and implementation of amorphous biological robots.