UROL:EN Emergent Energetic Regulation in Dynamic Biological Networks

UROL:EN 动态生物网络中的紧急能量调节

• 批准号: 2222418
• 负责人: Simon Garnier
• 金额: $ 299.92万
• 依托单位: New Jersey Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2027-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2222418&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: UROL; EN; Emergent; Energetic; Regulation

Regulation mechanisms are essential for keeping systems within desired working conditions. For instance, body temperature in humans is regulated by a complex network of neurons and hormones that control heat production (e.g., through metabolic activity) and loss (e.g., through sweating) to avoid fatal hypo- or hyperthermia. Typical biological and engineered regulation mechanisms take the form of circuits that connect sensors to actuators in a predictable way (e.g., a thermostat in an air conditioning system). However, systems that are composed of many loosely connected and mobile units (e.g., a colony of ants or a fleet of autonomous robots) rarely exhibit long-lasting connections that could support such rigid regulatory circuits. In this context, this collaborative research brings together biologists, theoreticians, and engineers to achieve two goals: understand how highly plastic collective systems regulate themselves in the face of changes (using energetic regulation in ants as a model system), and derive general principles to engineer artificial distributed systems that can autonomously regulate their collective activities to maintain function in uncertain environments. The project will also give students ranging from K-12 to Ph.D. an opportunity to learn how social systems succeed and fail at regulating themselves, and how fundamental knowledge of natural processes can lead to new technological developments and applications in engineering.The project has three complementary components. In Component 1, the researchers will perform laboratory experiments with ants to investigate whether biological collectives exhibit energetic regulation in response to both weak and strong variations in energy demand and availability, and how this impacts their biological productivity. These studies will combine computer vision-assisted behavioral observations to measure the individual and collective behaviors of the ants and physiological measurements to determine the dynamics of their energetic states. In Component 2, the result of the laboratory experiments will be used to develop a network-theoretic framework to elucidate and engineer energetic regulation in distributed and highly dynamic collectives of self-organizing units. The goal will be to design generalizable abstractions that allow for theoretical analysis to determine what behavioral rules lead to successful collective regulation or to its failure. Finally, in Component 3, the researchers will design engineering solutions for collective energy management in robotic swarms and evaluate their efficiency in simulations and in experiments with actual robots. The goal is to build a swarm that will be capable of optimally balancing energetic supply and demand, even in dynamical and unpredictable working environments. Ultimately, this effort will lead to establishing a new paradigm for better understanding how loosely connected units can nonetheless collectively maintain function and homeostasis, despite experiencing fluctuations in their energetic requirements and/or their ability to exploit resources.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

调节机制对于将系统保持在所需的工作条件下至关重要。例如，人类的体温受到控制热产生（例如，通过代谢活动）和损失（例如，通过出汗）的复杂神经元和激素网络的调节，以避免致命的性低或高温。典型的生物和工程调节机制采用电路的形式，这些电路以可预测的方式将传感器连接到致动器（例如，空调系统中的恒温器）。但是，由许多松散连接和移动单元（例如，蚂蚁或自主机器人群）组成的系统很少表现出持久的连接，这些连接可以支持这种刚性调节电路。在这种情况下，这项协作研究将生物学家，理论家和工程师汇集在一起​​，以实现两个目标：了解塑料集体系统如何在面对变化的情况下（使用ANT作为模型系统中的能量调节）来调节自己，并为工程师的人工分布式系统提供一般原则，以自动调节其集体活动以在不确定的环境中自动调节其功能。该项目还将为学生提供从K-12到博士学位的学生。一个学习社会系统如何成功和失败的机会，以及自然过程的基本知识如何导致工程中的新技术发展和应用。该项目具有三个互补的组成部分。在组件1中，研究人员将对蚂蚁进行实验室实验，以研究生物集体是否表现出能量需求和可用性较弱和强烈变化的能量调节，以及这如何影响其生物生产力。这些研究将结合计算机视觉辅助的行为观察，以测量蚂蚁的个体和集体行为和生理测量，以确定其能量状态的动力学。在组件2中，实验室实验的结果将用于开发网络理论框架，以阐明和工程师在分布式和高度动态的自组织单位中的能量调节。目的是设计可概括的抽象，以允许理论分析确定哪些行为规则导致成功的集体监管或失败。最后，在组件3中，研究人员将设计工程解决方案，用于机器人群中的集体能源管理，并评估其在模拟和实际机器人实验中的效率。目的是建立一个群，即使在动态和不可预测的工作环境中，也将能够最佳地平衡能量的供求。最终，这项努力将导致建立一个新的范式，以更好地理解尽管在充满活力的要求和/或其利用资源的能力方面存在波动，但仍可以集体地维持功能和稳态。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，反映了通过评估基金会的智力效果，并通过评估了基金会的范围，并具有范围的范围。