Creating space-time affordances via an autonomous sensor network

An autonomous sensor network (ASN), which is composed of many sensor units, is proposed and studied as a new challenge for artificial life in open-environment experiments. An aim of this study is to investigate how an artificial life system behaves in a real, open, ever-changing environment with short- and long-term environmental changes, including human behaviors. Compared to robot experiments in an open space, we say that ASN will not move around in a space but can be tested for a longer period of time with strongly autonomous behavior, without ignoring the messiness of the environment,. The sensor network is unique because we employ artificial chemistry to enable it to control the sensitivity of each sensor unit (i.e., sensors are not simply reacting to environmental changes but are mutually affecting each other). Depending on the environmental pattern and interaction conditions between sensors, the system switches between a resonating state and a resting state. The resting state is the baseline activity of the network for a normal environmental condition, and the resonating state emerges when the environmental parameter (i.e., the light condition) changes. We tested the nature of this behavior by an emulator, showing the transition point in its sampling periodicity from a resting state to a resonating state. To “experience” this switching behavior between a resting and resonating state, we organized a sound installation by translating the sensor states into sound patterns with unidirectional ultrasonic speakers. Such art installation can be a good opportunity to test long-term adaptive behaviors of artificial life in the real world.