Non-Cartesian robotics and evolution of atomic competences: concepts, classification and population fitness

This paper presents a nonCartesian robotics approach to the design of hardware and software architectures for artificial life forms. NonCartesian robotics is a suite of design methodologies which support the development of nonhierarchical, self-organizing mini-processes which contribute to the emergent behavior of a system. A nonCartesian robot has a complex but nonhierarchical, essentially nondeterministic structure which derives its intelligence through a process of self-organization among competences. This approach is rooted in evolutionary and intelligent information systems technologies used to develop collections of simple processes called competences, which are realized in hardware and software for artificial life forms. The contribution of this paper is the introduction of atomic competences which provide a basis for nonCartesian intelligent information system models for artificial life forms.