Amorphous computing: a research agenda for the near future

Localizers were a basic tool of a technical civilization. The tiny devices chirped their impulse codes at one another, using time of flight and distributed algorithms to accurately locate each participating device. Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile. Together they were a kind of low-level network, providing information on the orientation, position, and relative velocity of the electric jets and the rubble.

From Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge (2000)

Abstract

Amorphous computing presents a novel computational paradigm. The respective computational models have been recently introduced and studied in a series of works by J. Wiedermann and his Ph.D. student L. Petrů. From a computational viewpoint, amorphous computing systems differ from the classical ones almost in every aspect: they consist of a set of tiny, independent and self-powered processors or robots that can communicate wirelessly to a limited distance. The processors are randomly placed in a closed area or volume and form an ad-hoc network; in some applications they can move, either actively, or passively (e.g., in a bloodstream). Assuming the exponential progress in all sciences resulting in our ability to produce amorphous computing systems with myriads of processors, an unmatched application potential is expected profoundly to change all areas of science and life. But prior to this state of the matters theoretical and practical studies of the computational properties and efficiency of amorphous computing systems must be performed. It is expected that an indispensable part of computer science will be affected by this trend.