Projektbeschreibung
Netzwerke künstlicher, interagierender, selbstoszillierender Materialien
Dynamische Materialien, die Veränderungen in ihrem Umfeld wahrnehmen und auf funktionelle Art darauf reagieren können, könnten der Wissenschaft und Technik enorme Vorteile bieten. Das ERC-finanzierte Projekt ONLINE wird versuchen, lebensechte Materialstrukturen zu entwickeln, die über physischen Kontakt, Flüssigkeiten oder optische Strahlen miteinander kommunizieren. Diese künstlichen Materialien werden ihre mechanische Bewegung außerhalb des thermodynamischen Gleichgewichts erhalten können. Das Ziel von ONLINE ist es, unter Nutzung dieser Selbstoszillierung Softroboter zu entwerfen, die ihre eigene Bewegung aufrechterhalten, eigene Entscheidungen fällen und sich an Umweltbedingungen anpassen können, ganz ohne menschliches Eingreifen.
Ziel
ONLINE aims to develop new concepts of communication between inanimate materials.
What is meant by communication? In biological context, communication refers to interactive behaviour of one organism affecting the current or future behaviour of another. In the context of bioinspired materials, ONLINE will develop life-like material structures that communicate with each other via physical contact, fluidic medium, or optical beams. These inanimate materials will be coupled to form networks that communicate autonomously through light.
How to make them? The core concept behind the communicative materials is self-oscillatory (self-sustained) motions in light-responsive liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). Self-oscillation is a responsive structure that can self-sustain its own mechanical motion in a constant energy field. It captures the key concepts of living organisms, i.e. functioning out of thermodynamic equilibrium and energy dissipation. My goal is to scale down the self-oscillator concepts to the micro-scale and realize soft material robots that can communicate.
Why is this important? There exists an increasing need for artificial materials that can interact, alike biological systems. However, all the dynamic features of state-of-the-art responsive materials are based on internal material properties, and making individual materials interact with each other is a huge challenge. ONLINE proposes three new model systems for material communication: (I) Microscopic walker swarm, in which the locomotion and patterns of interactions between individuals can be fully programmed; (II) Cilia array that move cooperatively and self-regulate the fluidics at low Reynolds numbers; (III) Homeostasis-like light-communicating coupled network that provides a full set of tunable parameters to mimic the complexity of biological oscillators.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
- natural sciencesphysical sciencescondensed matter physicssoft matter physics
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringroboticssoft robotics
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringroboticsswarm robotics
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicssolid mechanics
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringliquid crystals
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Gastgebende Einrichtung
33100 Tampere
Finnland