Requirements for evolvability in complex systems: orderly dynamics and frozen components
CNLS '89 Proceedings of the ninth annual international conference of the Center for Nonlinear Studies on Self-organizing, Collective, and Cooperative Phenomena in Natural and Artificial Computing Networks on Emergent computation
The Advantages of Landscape Neutrality in Digital Circuit Evolution
ICES '00 Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware
On the Utility of Redundant Encodings in Mutation-Based Evolutionary Search
PPSN VII Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature
Genotype-Phenotype-Mapping and Neutral Variation - A Case Study in Genetic Programming
PPSN III Proceedings of the International Conference on Evolutionary Computation. The Third Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature: Parallel Problem Solving from Nature
Neutrality and the Evolvability of Boolean Function Landscape
EuroGP '01 Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Genetic Programming
HOTOS '01 Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems
Redundant representations in evolutionary computation
Evolutionary Computation
Systems engineering in an age of complexity: Regular Paper
Systems Engineering
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WSC '05 Proceedings of the 37th conference on Winter simulation
Emergent (mis)behavior vs. complex software systems
Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGOPS/EuroSys European Conference on Computer Systems 2006
Neutrality and ruggedness in robot landscapes
CEC '02 Proceedings of the Evolutionary Computation on 2002. CEC '02. Proceedings of the 2002 Congress - Volume 02
Genetic programming using genotype-phenotype mapping from linear genomes into linear phenotypes
GECCO '96 Proceedings of the 1st annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation
Principles of complex systems for systems engineering
Systems Engineering
Contrasting views of complexity and their implications for network-centric infrastructures
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A: Systems and Humans
The role of degenerate robustness in the evolvability of multi-agent systems in dynamic environments
PPSN'10 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Parallel problem solving from nature: Part I
Normative design of organizations. II. Organizational structure
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A: Systems and Humans
Natural Computing: an international journal
Natural Computing: an international journal
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Engineered systems are designed to deftly operate under predetermined conditions yet are notoriously fragile when unexpected perturbations arise. In contrast, biological systems operate in a highly flexible manner; learn quickly adequate responses to novel conditions, and evolve new routines and traits to remain competitive under persistent environmental change. A recent theory on the origins of biological flexibility has proposed that degeneracy--the existence of multi-functional components with partially overlapping functions--is a primary determinant of the robustness and adaptability found in evolved systems. While degeneracy's contribution to biological flexibility is well documented, there has been little investigation of degeneracy design principles for achieving flexibility in systems engineering. Actually, the conditions that can lead to degeneracy are routinely eliminated in engineering design. With the planning of transportation vehicle fleets taken as a case study, this article reports evidence that degeneracy improves the robustness and adaptability of a simulated fleet towards unpredicted changes in task requirements without incurring costs to fleet efficiency. We find that degeneracy supports faster rates of design adaptation and ultimately leads to better fleet designs. In investigating the limitations of degeneracy as a design principle, we consider decision-making difficulties that arise from degeneracy's influence on fleet complexity. While global decision-making becomes more challenging, we also find degeneracy accommodates rapid distributed decision-making leading to (near-optimal) robust system performance. Given the range of conditions where favorable short-term and long-term performance outcomes are observed, we propose that degeneracy may fundamentally alter the propensity for adaptation and is useful within different engineering and planning contexts.