Assembling Assemblers with Functional Digital Materials
Abstract
The DoD Supply Chain Fact Book lists millions of items that are maintained in its inventory. These are manufactured from an enormous number of components, which are in turn made from a huge range of materials. This proposals aims to establish the research foundations for a roadmap to reduce this supply chain down to tens of building blocks. This will be accomplished by looking beyond the current focus on the transition from subtractive to additive fabrication to a much more fundamental distinction between analog processes that continuously add or remove materials and digital ones that are based on discrete assembly and disassembly. The inspiration for this proposal comes from the role of amino acids in molecular biology. The twenty standard amino acids are combined in a primary structure with a coding sequence, which then form the secondary structures of structural motifs, which are joined in the tertiary structure of functional elements, and then the quaternary structure of the molecular machinery that is the basis of life. In the same way, this proposal will use ÒdigitalÓ materials that are reversibly joined from a discrete set of parts, with a discrete set of relative positions and orientations. But rather than being bounded by the materials of molecular biology, these will span the properties of engineered materials -- conducting versus insulating, rigid versus flexural, ... . These building blocks will likewise be assembled into functional elements, which will be joined into modules, to be used in systems. The projectÕs focus will be on developing an assembler that can assemble itself out of the parts that it is assembling. This is for two reasons. The first is because it is a paradigmatic test case of a complex integrated electromechanical system. And the second is because assembling assemblers is essential for exponential scaling with massively parallel serial fabrication. This can be thought of as a ÒrobosomeÓ, a robotic analog to the ribosomes that assemble proteins. The project will progress in three one-year phases. The first year will develop the functional elements (secondary structure) -- actuators, switches, ..., and combine them into modules (tertiary structure) -- motion stages, part feeders, ... . In the second year, the function modules will be used to produce the assembler (quaternary structure). And in the third year the functional elements will be decomposed into primitive parts (primary structure) -- conducting, insulating, ..., to complete the hierarchy of an assembler assembled from the parts that it s assembling. Supporting tasks for this program include development of an end-to-end workflow for discrete assembly, composition of part models for predictive multiphysics simulation, designs libraries for coded construction, and prototype and volume processes for part production. Core questions to be addressed include the geometry for assembly, mechanical analogs to bonds, the basis sets at each level of the hierarchy, the representation of functional discrete designs, geometrical models of programming, and ultimately the minimum building blocks for bootstrapping technology.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 08, 2019
- Source ID
- W911NF1610568
Entities
People
- Neil Gershenfeld
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Office of the Secretary of Defense