The Science and Technology of Creating "Motion"
The things around us, such as self-driving cars, drones, and autonomous robots, are becoming highly automated and smarter by the day. So, what is the fundamental science and technology that creates this smartness? What these examples have in common is that they achieve desired behavior by using external information like distance and speed to interact with the outside world just when and as much as needed. In other words, the mechanism behind this smartness is the presence of a sophisticated information processing system that measures "events" occurring in the world of "things" and appropriately determines the actions to take based on those "events."
The field of systems and control engineering, which is my specialty, focuses precisely on the information processing of "events" and studies methodologies for designing the "motion" of various objects in the world. For instance, we logically consider from the perspectives of physics and information questions like how to predict an object's motion using equations that describe physical laws and data from sensors, and what commands should be given to engines or motors to achieve the desired motion. This process generates the logic for realizing smart motion and leads to the development of computer programs that implement it.
The applications of systems and control are not limited to electrical/electronic circuits and mechanical systems. Currently, our laboratory is engaged in research on "biomolecular circuits," which are composed of biomolecules such as DNA and proteins, as an application of systems and control. The design information for proteins is encoded in genes on DNA, and various proteins that support biological functions are synthesized using this information. These proteins form a circuit of chemical reactions that promote or inhibit each other's synthesis, and they are designed to express appropriate functions by synthesizing the necessary amount of protein at the right time in response to conditions inside and outside the cell. The mechanism that creates the "motion" of this smart protein synthesis, realized through a circuit of chemical reactions, is systems and control itself.
Therefore, our laboratory is conducting fundamental research to deepen our understanding of the systems and control mechanisms in biomolecular reaction circuits and to leverage that knowledge to artificially control reactions for applications in fields such as engineering and medical sciences. As our research progresses, it has become clear that there are many commonalities between the control mechanisms of biomolecular circuits and artificial systems. We have found that it is possible to predict and experimentally control reactions using universally systematized mathematical formulas.
Thus, even between "things" that differ in material and scale, we can sometimes discover universal design principles by focusing on their "motion." While advanced science and technology often brings "things" to mind, we are conducting research to solve the world's problems through the science of "events."
The academic field that seeks to unify and theorize the common structures in artifacts, living organisms, and social phenomena from the perspectives of control and communication was proposed and named cybernetics by Norbert Wiener in the 1940s. It is astonishing that it continues to provide insights for the development of modern science and technology.