  We argue that embryological morphogenesis provides a model of how massive
swarms of microscopic agents can be coordinated to assemble complex, multiscale
hierarchical structures. This is accomplished by understanding natural
morphogenetic processes in mathematical terms, abstracting from the biological
specifics, and implementing these mathematical principles in artificial
systems. We have developed a notation based on partial differential equations
for artificial morphogenesis and have designed a prototype morphogenetic
programming language, which permits precise description of morphogenetic
algorithms and their automatic translation to simulation software.
Morphogenetic programming is illustrated by two examples: (1) use of a modified
flocking algorithm to route dense fiber bundles between regions of an
artificial cortex while avoiding other bundles; (2) use of the
clock-and-wavefront model of spinal segmentation for the assembly of the
segmented spine of an insect-like robot body and for assembling segmented legs
on the robot's spine. Finally, we show how a variation of smoothed particle
hydrodynamics (SPH) swarm robotic control can be applied to the global-to-local
compilation problem, that is, the derivation of individual agent control from
global PDE specifications.
