An Architecture for Self-Replicating Lunar Factories

The concept of self-replicating machines was introduced more than fifty years ago by John von Neumann. However, to our knowledge a fully autonomous self-replicating robot has not been implemented until now. Here we describe a fully autonomous prototype that demonstrates robotic self replication. This work builds on our previous results in remote- controlled robotic replication and semi-autonomous replicating robotic systems.

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