Collective behavior of random-activated mobile cellular automata

Abstract Dynamical properties of 2D cellular automata with mobile elements are examined qualitatively. Results show that a system containing elements with local interactions but with no fixed connections, due to movement and connection breaking, are able to display periodic oscillations by collective synchronization of non-periodical randomly activated elements. The system studied is found to be robust. Spatial dynamics is shown to generate interesting spatial structures suggesting the presence of self-organization. Moreover, maximum Lyapunov exponents and fractal dimension of attractors have been calculated in order to show that the dynamics of interaction among elements is chaotic.