The phenomenon of self-organization occurs in many areas of our life. In nature, for example, fish organize themselves to swim in well-structured shoals, ants find shortest routes to food sources, and fireflies emit light flashes in perfect synchrony to attract mating partners. Other examples of self-organized behavior can be observed in economy, psychology, social sciences, and brain theory, to mention a few disciplines. To give further examples, the growth of our population, the spread of diseases, the formation of public opinion, and the formation of clouds can be modeled as a self-organizing process.
All these phenomena share the fact that the participating entities establish a structure or function without requiring central coordination. Instead, entities interact directly with each other and continuously react to changes in their environment. Such systems are often flexible, adaptive, and scalable. Although individual entities are often unreliable, the overall system experiences a high level of resilience.
Research Topics
Lakeside Labs focuses on the following research topics in this domain:
- Engineering self-organization
- Self-organizing synchronization
- Consensus building