Self-Assembled Devices May Transform Manufacturing

Engineers are developing multiple technologies to create devices that self-assemble or self-reconfigure, from synthetic DNA to robotic building blocks. Some may eventually create materials tailored for specific functions, or energy-harvesting and drug-delivery devices. Others may be used to copy objects for rapid prototyping, make replacement parts for other systems, or repair themselves. Self-assembling and self-reconfiguring robots that change their shapes and functions to fit the task and environment may serve as rescue robots and planetary explorers, or completely replace the manufacturing processes of certain consumer goods. All of these techniques are still in R&D.

Until recently, nanotechnology using DNA to build tiny, programmable structures focused mostly on DNA origami. Here, a long strand of biological DNA forms a backbone, with smaller strands bound to its segments to create different shapes. Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering traveled a different path. Led by Peng Yin, assistant professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School and a core faculty member at Wyss, the team programmed short synthetic strands of DNA as building blocks, called single-stranded tiles (SSTs). These self-assemble into precise shapes, such as letters and numbers. During self-assembly each 3 nm x 7 nm SST binds to as many as four other tiles if they have complementary DNA sequences. There is no backbone required, so the number of distinct shapes that can be built is high, more than 100, and tiles can be independently added or removed.

The SuperBot is a set of robotic modules that form and reform linear or solid shapes, such as this walking humanoid form. Developed for possible use by NASA in planetary exploration, SuperBot can walk, crawl, climb, and carry things depending on its form.

Recently, the team extended its work to three-dimensional objects: instead of tiles, the strands now form bricks. Each brick has a distinct sequence of nucleotides, but an identical shape. The team used the 3D bricks to build 102 distinct shapes, somewhat like LEGOs.

“We want to use DNA as information-carrying, self-assembling molecules,” Yin told Design News. “We’re pursuing nanotechnology as a methodology for developing self-assembling devices because it is the only way to make the structures we want, which need small, nanometer-scale particles as building blocks. These are on a different scale than self-assembly methods based on macro-scale building blocks.”

Yin said the technology has several potential uses. In clinical applications, it can be designed to detect diseases, and perhaps also deliver cancer-killing drugs. It can also be used to increase the throughput of nanofabrication processes for making materials used in photonics and energy applications, such as highly efficient nanoelectronics or energy-harvesting devices, or even for nanodevice rapid prototyping.

Larger robotic building blocks have been developed by many different researchers. Some of the best-known self-transforming robots are SuperBot, created by researchers at the Information Sciences Institute of USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, and CKbot (Connector Kinetic robot), developed by engineers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Modular Robotics Laboratory.

Because all of this work is still in R&D it might be easy to dismiss it as blue-sky. But I discovered while doing the background research for this article that many of these projects have been underway for several years, and much of what's being done now is second- or even third-generation R&D. There's an awful lot of brains and money aimed at developing self-assembling. self-reconfiguring robots. I came away with the feeling that the future is going to be very different, indeed.

In the past, there has been the myth that robots create more jobs (in robot design and manufacturing systems design) than they replace. But it's simple economics -- if robots create more jobs than they replace they would not be economically feasible -- and apparently they are economically feasible.

Rob, I agree--in fact, it's simple arithmetic. I'm getting a little tired of hearing about all the supposed new jobs that will be created instead of all the jobs that will, obviously, in fact be taken away. What's also ignored in those arguments is--what happens to all the people whose jobs are taken away? And what happens to all the people trained for, and dependent on, that shrinking pool of good blue collar jobs?

For this approach to gain traction, there may be a need for a killer app or specific market for these modular, self-reconfiguring robots to prove themselves in. OEM machines are often very niche oriented (relatively low number of new machines per year and a huge installed base developed over a much longer period). Makes it difficult for new approaches to break in.

In the early years of computers, the computers did indeed create more jobs than they eliminated. That was partly due to poor implementation and apps that were not well designed for labor savings. That, of course, changed in time.

With robots, I wouldn't expect that delay. I would imagine the apps are available as the robots are created. So the labor savings would be immediate.

Ann, this technology seems to reflect what we've already seen in numerous sci-fi books and movies. There are many examples, but one that jumps to mind is Terminator 2, where the terminator robot re-assembles itself after getting shot.

@Rob: The problem with your "simple economics" argument ("if robots create more jobs than they replace they would not be economically feasible") is that economics is not a zero-sum game. Higher productivity creates economic growth, which creates jobs.

Companies don't make money by eliminating jobs, they make money by selling products. If automation allows a company to make products at a lower cost, they can sell more products. If they sell more products, they will make more money. If the company makes more money, they will have more money to invest -- including in new employees.

Al, the main apps I've heard of mentioned more than once are consumer, like reconfigurable furniture, or reconfigurable robots for space exploration and search and rescue. That's the macro-level tehcnmologies. For the nano and micro-Ievel it's usually various medical uses such as drug delivery mechanisms.

University of Southampton researchers have come up with a way to 3D print transparent optical fibers like those used in fiber-optic telecommunications cables, potentially boosting frequency and reducing loss.

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