Tech for Autonomous Systems – Advanced Interaction Capabilities IV

In the cartoon an example of implicit communications among autonomous systems. Various species of bacteria are represented by different colors. Bacteria can produce chemical signals (“talk”) and other bacteria can respond to them (“listen”) in a process commonly known as cell-cell communication or cell-cell signaling. This communication can result in coordinated behavior of microbial populations. Credit: MSU-CBE

Communications technologies – part 1

The increase in processing capacity has made possible to manage multiple communications channels. This is reaching a maturity with terminal devices (systems) able to manage a broad spectrum of frequencies at the same time and make autonomous decisions on which to use that will be leveraged in the next decade by 5G.

In autonomous systems communications is an embedded feature used both for internal and external communications, and the advanced management of spectrum provides much more flexibility. In many instances autonomous systems will keep their external communications activity to a minimum: since they are autonomous they will need the capability to be aware, understand their environment and act in consequence without having to rely on what others are doing. This is at the root of autonomy. They will need to capture, sense, what is going on and react accordingly. This sensing may be seen as a form of implicit communication. Likewise, their behaviour/reaction to a changing environment is a sort of implicit communications towards other systems in their proximity. A car that is blinking its direction light is sending a message to whoever minds to take it that it will soon turn in that direction. The communications taking place in living organisms, among cells, are examples of implicit communications. Discussion is still going on to see if among neurones and neural circuits there is also explicit communications going on or it is just another form of implicit communications. For sure in the brain there is a lot of implicit communications going on (all chemical changes, serotonin levels, as an example, are implicit communications).

Notice that in implicit communications there is no acknowledge coming, nor expected, although changes in the environment following an implicit communications may be indicating that the message was received and acted upon.

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.