New soft, mechanical metamaterials can “think” about how forces are applied to it and respond via preprogrammed reactions.
IMAGE: ELIZABETH FLORES-GOMEZ MURRAY/ PENN STATE
Engineered, autonomous machines combined with artificial intelligence have long been a staple of science fiction, and often in the role of villain like the Cylons in the “Battlestar Galactica” reboot, creatures composed of biological and engineered materials. But what if these autonomous soft machines were … helpful?
This is the vision of a team of Penn State and U.S. Air Force researchers, outlined in a recent paper in Nature Communications. These researchers produced a soft, mechanical metamaterial that can “think” about how forces are applied to it and respond via programmed reactions. This platform holds great potential for a variety of applications from medical treatments to improving the environment.
“We created soft, mechanical metamaterials with flexible, conductive polymer networks that can compute all digital logic computations,” said Ryan Harne, James F. Will Career Development Associate Professor, Penn State. “Our paper reports a way to create decision-making functionality in engineered materials in a way that could support future soft, autonomous engineered systems that are invested with the basic elements of lifeforms yet are programmed to perform helpful services for people. These could include helping maintain sustainable and robust infrastructure, monitoring of airborne and waterborne contaminants and pathogens, assisting with patient wound healing, and more.”
Human thought processes are based on logic, Harne notes, which is similar to Boolean logic from mathematics. This approach uses binary inputs to process binary control outputs — using only “on” and “off” sequences to represent all thought and cognition. The soft materials that the research team created “think” using the reconfiguration of the conductive polymer networks. Mechanical force, applied to the materials, connects, and reconnects the network.
Using a low voltage input into the materials, the research team created a way for the soft material to decide how to react according to the output voltage signal from the reconfigured conductive polymer network.
The type of logic that Harne and the team uses goes beyond pure mechanical logic, which is a way of using combinations of bistable switches — switches with two stable states — to represent the “0s” and “1s” of a binary number sequence. They found that when they used pure mechanical logic, the researchers ended up getting stuck because certain logical operations cannot be constructed.
“You hit a point where you can’t actually process all of the eight logic gates,” Harne said. “You can process four of them, but you can’t process the last four. We discovered the way to incorporate electrical signals along with mechanical signals, allowing us to process all of the logic gates used in modern digital computing.”
The key to realizing all the logic gates was in the combination of the electrical polymer network with the soft, deformable material. The researchers created the logic operations by simultaneously reconfiguring the soft material and the electrically conductive network.
This also ensures that the binary output is in the form of electricity, which is needed to drive an actuation mechanism that makes the material respond to the applied mechanical force. The combination of electrical and mechanical signals allows the machine to move to get out of the way or to push back in a certain direction.
Harne and the team want to go beyond a single material and design something more complex.
“I have a vision for how scientists and engineers can create engineered living systems that help society,” Harne said. “All you need to do is bring together all of the functions of life forms. And when you do that, you have at your disposal the building blocks of engineered life.”
While this all seems like science fiction, Harne believes it has tremendous potential.
“It is somewhat sci-fi, I do have to admit that, and I will say, I’ve had colleagues think I’m a little crazy,” Harne said. “But if we as engineers and scientists understand all of the things that make up life, why aren’t we trying to make engineered living things that can help people?”
Original Article: Helpful, engineered ‘living’ machines in the future?
More from: Pennsylvania State University | Air Force Research Laboratory
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Living machines
- Philips agrees to pay $1 billion to patients who say they were injured by breathing machines
The proposed settlement will effectively end more than 700 lawsuits filed after the 2021 recall of millions of the company’s widely used sleep apnea devices and ventilators.
- Penguins Enjoying a Bubble Machine at the Indianapolis Zoo Are Making Everybody Smile
Who knew that penguins have a favorite way to have fun! The Indianapolis Zoo celebrated World Penguin Day on April 25th by bringing in the penguins' favorite enrichment activity - a bubble machine!
- JYX Mini Karaoke Machine, Now 18% Off
The device offers flawless connectivity. Featuring the latest Bluetooth 5.0 chip for quick pairing, stable transmission, and long-range connectivity, the JYX Mini Karaoke Machine is versatile and ...
- How Deep Purple Created a ‘Minor Miracle’ With ‘Machine Head’
Deep Purple's Roger Glover and Ian Paice look back at one of their most celebrated albums during a 2024 interview with UCR.
- Living the Good Life in a Pro Touring 1966 Mustang Convertible
Built in a mere 18 months, this capable stallion was lucky to have the right car builder waiting in the wings!
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Living machines
[google_news title=”” keyword=”living machines” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Autonomous soft machines
- Alphadroid aims to empower hospitality industry with service robots
Robotics company Alphadroid aims to develop a machine that empowers overall business processes with sustainability and cost efficiency ...
- 2024 State of Freight Forwarders: What’s next is happening now
Technological solutions and platforms are being rapidly developed and are catapulting the freight forwarding industry into a new era. Today, the forwarding industry is undergoing a digital revolution, ...
- The best deals at Best Buy ahead of Memorial Day can save you hundreds on tech, home goods and more
There are tons of savings waiting for you at Best Buy right now, from discounted iPads to Samsung TVs and more.
- Tractor-trailers with no one aboard? The future is near for self-driving trucks on US roads
Within three or four years, thousands of self-driving tractor-trailers are expected to travel on America’s public freeways.
- Inside the Autonomous Racing League event that pitted a self-driving car against a Formula 1 driver
As for man vs. machine, Daniil Kvyat made quick work of the autonomous car, passing it not once but twice to huge cheers from the assembled crowd of more than 10,000 spectators who took advantage of ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Autonomous soft machines
[google_news title=”” keyword=”autonomous soft machines” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]