Descrizione del progetto
Reti di materiali artificiali, interagenti e auto-oscillanti
I materiali dinamici in grado di rilevare i cambiamenti che avvengono nell’ambiente che li circonda e di rispondere di conseguenza in modo funzionale potrebbero apportare enormi benefici alla scienza e all’ingegneria. Il progetto ONLINE, finanziato dal CER, punta a sviluppare strutture materiali realistiche che comunichino tra di loro mediante contatto fisico, mezzi fluidi o fasci ottici. Questi materiali artificiali saranno dotati della capacità di sostenere il proprio moto meccanico in condizioni di squilibrio termodinamico. Sfruttando questo concetto di auto-oscillazione, ONLINE si propone di progettare robot morbidi che siano in grado di sostenere il proprio movimento, prendere decisioni autonome e adattarsi alle condizioni ambientali in cui si trovano senza il bisogno di alcun controllo umano.
Obiettivo
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.
Campo scientifico
- 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
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Istituzione ospitante
33100 Tampere
Finlandia