Programmable Matter
14/06/09 11:05 Filed in: Science
A revolutionary new technology may allow future warfighters to command their equipment to physically change itself to meet new operational needs or to form spare parts or tools. Researchers are developing techniques to order materials to self-assemble or alter their shape, perform a function and then disassemble themselves. These capabilities offer the possibility for morphing objects. The goal of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) Programmable Matter program is to create a new type of matter that can assemble itself into complex three-dimensional objects on command, explains program manager Dr. Mitchell R. Zakin. Zakin envisions programmable matter in this way: In the future a soldier will have something that looks like a paint can in the back of his vehicle. The can is filled with particles of varying sizes, shapes and capabilities. These individual bits can be small computers, ceramics, biological systems—potentially anything the user wants them to be. The soldier needs a wrench of a specific size. He broadcasts a message to the container, which causes the particles to automatically form the wrench. After the wrench has been used, the soldier realizes that he needs a hammer. He puts the wrench back into the can where it disassembles itself back into its components and re-forms into a hammer. “That is the essence of programmable matter,” he says.
Although the concept of self-forming matter smacks of science fiction, Zakin says that considerable progress has been made in proving the technology’s underlying science. Developing programmable matter is also its own new field of study: infochemistry, which blends several different sciences such as chemistry, information theory and control engineering to build information directly into materials.
Zakin explains that materials are “dumb,” in that they do not have much fluidity or plasticity in their properties. There are shape memory alloys that can slightly alter their shape when heated by an electric current, but he notes that their range of motion and capabilities are limited. To build truly changeable, plastic materials, the information to do so must be directly integrated into the material itself. The exact composition of the material can vary—it can be a chemical or a microchip, or a larger structure with computers embedded in it. The goal is to distribute processing capabilities throughout the material. “You’re blurring the distinction between materials and machines. Materials act like computers and communications systems, and communications systems and computers act like materials,” he says.
An important part of infochemistry is what Zakin describes as mesomatter, the particles needed to build structures. Ranging in size from 100 microns to a centimeter, these pieces are large enough to have machinery built into them. A key function behind mesomatter is separability. Zakin notes that a particular particle’s shape determines how it fits together with other particles, but its internal structure carries its function and data sharing capabilities. Not only does this combination of data and material allow for dynamic flexibility in creating structures, but he says that it can potentially create new states of matter. Conventional materials can transition from liquids to solids, but these new “infomaterials” can have infosolids, where the matter is solid and its information is localized; “infoliquids” where both the material and information are flowing, and any number of combinations in between.
The Programmable Matter program is now approximately five months into its second phase, which is scheduled to last about 15 months. The first phase of the effort involved five teams, two from Harvard University, two from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one from Cornell University. Zakin notes that all of the teams successfully met their goals and are all now working on phase two. The teams are made up of experts from a range of disciplines such as computer scientists, roboticists, biologists, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, physicists and artists. Zakin describes the research on programmable matter as “the ultimate interdisciplinary endeavor.” Another important part of the program is that the five teams are collaborating with each other, not competing. This is because each team has its own strengths and weaknesses and they share information. The teams meet on a regular basis and present their results to each other to help facilitate the information sharing.