Project description
Colloidal liquids underly a new generation of fault-tolerant and self-healing cybernetic systems
Half-human, half-machine entities are nothing new in the realm of the movie and gaming industries. However, while you may have heard the term cyborg, you might not know that it is derived from the words 'cybernetic organism'. Cybernetics has ancient origins as a Proto-Indo-European word that has to do with governing. Its first documented occurrence, κυβϵρνητική τεχνη in ancient Greek (literally the art of the pilot), dates back to Plato (346 B.C.). Today, imparting human qualities to machines or man-made systems conventionally relies on sensors, artificial intelligence and computers, and the resulting technologies are typically solid-state. The EU-funded COgITOR project will develop pioneering cybernetic colloidal (liquid) systems capable of sensing, computing, data storage and energy harvesting, as well as being self-healing and fault tolerant.
Objective
COGITOR represents a novel approach to cybernetics, proposing the study of Colloidal (liquid) Cybernetic Systems (CCS), a multifunctional liquid-based platform that we have designed to be capable of pressure sensing (i), computing and data storage (ii), energy harvesting (iii) and integrating fully custom electronics (iv). A CCS provides operation in extreme environments by definition, having distributed architecture (homogeneous liquid plus random network architecture), being fault-tolerant and featuring self-healing capabilities. Within COGITOR in 54 months the consortium will provide a platform where liquid electronics efforts can converge from all over the world, making European research the point of reference for this big step forward. COGITOR measurable and specific objectives are: i) creating an impedance liquid state pressure sensor with spatial and temporal resolution; ii) producing an holonomic reversible memory written/erased electrically and read by tomographic Microwave Impedance Spectroscopy; the electrical operation will be used to implement learning (both sequential and concurrent) and calculation, where the system acts as a many-input Boolean circuit; iii) harvesting energy from a thermal gradient artificially induced by IR radiation upon the prototype; iv) integration and testing of the final CCS prototype, testing self-healing and fault tolerance capabilities, as well as assessing interference, also under EE conditions varying T, p and B. The engineering applications that we plan to exploit will be part of the intellectual property of a spin-off company. The consortium is well-balanced with cutting edge Research Organizations across EU (IIT – Italy, UWE – UK, EMPA - Suisse) and companies (PC – Germany, PNO – Spain) that will closely collaborate to develop and really transfer knowledge and innovations into products and related services.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
16163 Genova
Italy