Abstract
Many natural organisms exhibit canalization: small genetic changes are accommodated by adaptation in other systems that interact with them. Engineered systems, however, are typically quite brittle, making design automation extremely difficult. We propose to address this problem with a generative representation of design based on manifold operators. The operator set we propose combines the intuitive simplicity of top-down rewrite rules with the flexibility and distortion tolerance of bottom-up GRN-based models. An embryogeny specified using this representation thus places constraints on a developing design, rather than specifying a fixed body plan, allowing canalization processes to modulate the design as it continues to develop. We demonstrate our ideas in the domain of electromechanical design and validate them with simulations at different levels of abstraction.