  Patterned self-assembly is a process whereby coloured tiles self-assemble to
build a rectangular coloured pattern. We propose self-assembly (SA) hypergraph
automata as an automata-theoretic model for patterned self-assembly. We
investigate the computational power of SA-hypergraph automata and show that for
every recognizable picture language, there exists an SA-hypergraph automaton
that accepts this language. Conversely, we prove that for any restricted
SA-hypergraph automaton, there exists a Wang Tile System, a model for
recognizable picture languages, that accepts the same language. The advantage
of SA-hypergraph automata over Wang automata, acceptors for the class of
recognizable picture languages, is that they do not rely on an a priori defined
scanning strategy
