29-12-2012, 02:09 PM
CLAYTRONICS
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ABSTRACT:
"Claytronics" is an emerging field of engineering concerning reconfigurable Nanoscale robots ('Claytronic atoms', or catoms) designed to form much larger scale machines or mechanisms. Also known as "programmable matter", the catoms will be sub-millimeter computers that will eventually have the ability to move around, communicate with each others, change color, and electro statically connect to other catoms to form different shapes. The forms made up of catoms could morph into nearly any object, even replicas of human beings for virtual meetings.
With Claytronics we are talking of intelligent material. How can a material be intelligent which is made up of particle-sized machines. At Carnegie Mellon, with support from Intel, the project is called Claytronics. The idea is simple: make basic computers housed in tiny spheres that can connect to each other and rearrange themselves. It’s the same concept as we saw with Modular Robotics, only on a smaller scale. Each particle, called a Claytronics atom or Catoms, is less than a millimeter in diameter. With billions you could make almost any object you wanted.
INTRODUCTION:
This project combines modular robotics, systems nanotechnology and computer science to create the dynamic, 3-Dimensional display of electronic information known as Claytronics.
The main goal is to give tangible, interactive forms to information so that a user's senses will experience digital environments as though they are indistinguishable from reality.
Claytronics is taking place across a rapidly advancing frontier. This technology will help to drive breathtaking advances in the design and engineering of computing and hardware systems.
THE ROLE OF MOORE’S LAW:
This promise of Claytronic technology has become possible because of the ever increasing speeds of computer processing predicted in Moore's Law (the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years).
CLAYTRONICS VS NANOTECHNOLOGY:
Forget Nanotechnology, Think Claytronics
Videoconferencing is like visiting someone in prison. You talk through a glass wall, but you can't deal with each other in a meaningful way. With Claytronics you could fax over an exact copy of your body, which will sit in that conference room thousands of miles away, mimicking your moves in real time and speaking with your voice.
Claytronics experts are designing a kind of programmable clay that can morph into a working 3-D replica of any person or object, based on information transmitted from anywhere in the world. The clay would be made out of millions of tiny microprocessors called catoms (for "Claytronic atoms"), each less than a millimeter wide. The catoms would bond electro-statically and be molded into different shapes when instructed by software. Think of Claytronics as a more workable version of nanotechnology, which in its most advanced form promises to do the same thing but requires billions of self-assembling robots. Processors are getting ever smaller, and at the sub millimeter level, they could communicate and move around independently, thanks to electrostatic forces. This makes the possibility of Claytronics even greater.
These are the fundamental building blocks for a new world of processing. Intel can see the potential. That potential could change the world. Who needs a TV when you can watch a live-scale replica of Super Bowl LXX being fought out by Claytronic football players on your coffee table? Why would a firefighter run into a burning building when he can send a Claytronic version of himself? It's computing in 3-D in everyday life.
CLAYTRONICS HARDWARE:
Through hardware engineering projects, researchers in the Carnegie Mellon-Intel Claytronics Project investigate the effects of scale on micro-electro-mechanical systems and model concepts for manufacturable, Nanoscale modular robots capable of self-assembly.
Catoms created from this research to populate Claytronic ensembles will be less than a millimeter in size, and the challenge in designing and manufacturing them draws the CMU-Intel Research team into a scale of engineering where have never been built.
CLAYTRONICS SOFTWARE:
After completion of the design of the hardware components required for the Claytronics design, the major process left is the software portion of the project design. The basic required of the software is the need for efficient programming language which is needed for managing the shaping of ensembles of millions of catoms into dynamic, 3-Dimensional forms. In the Carnegie Mellon-Intel Claytronics Software Lab, researchers address several areas of software development, which are described in this section
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES:
Researchers in the Claytronics project have also created Meld and LDP. These new languages for declarative programming provide compact linguistic structures for cooperative management of the motion of millions of modules in a matrix. The center panel above shows a simulation of Meld in which modules in the matrix have been instructed with a very few lines of highly condensed code to swarm toward a target.
CONCLUSION:
Science has no beginning and had no ending. The need for growth of science increases day-by-day and ever molding technologies are undergoing an effective change. Claytronics provide a useful and better interaction to the available physical objects.