Skip the navigation
News

Shape-shifting robot swarms will create 3D replicas

Clinging mini robots will assume any shape -- humans, furniture or game characters

By Sharon Gaudin
January 31, 2008 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - By 2020, instead of calling your boss and discussing a new project over the phone, a three-dimensional facsimile of him simply will sit in your office and have a discussion with you.

Want to play your favorite video game? Instead of watching characters move around on a computer monitor, why not let them run around your house?

This is the vision of the future for Seth Goldstein, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. For the past four years, Goldstein and a team of researchers from CMU, Intel Corp., and the U.S. Air Force Research Lab have been working to create swarms of tiny robots that can be manipulated with electromagnetic forces to create various forms. He explained that the miniscule robots, which one day should be about the size of a grain of sand, basically are shape shifters -clinging together to form various 3D creations.

"The research path from here to having millions of these working together to form a 3D replica of you in my office is going to be a long and circuitous route," Goldstein told Computerworld. "It's programmable matter. We want them to shift shape. As you're moving your hand in your actual office, your 3D replica has to move its hand, too. It's not just a picture. The idea is to bring physicality into reality."

Goldstein calls the programmable matter claytronics and the tiny robots catoms. And it's not all out of a sci-fi movie. Goldstein said. Working hand-in-hand with Intel Corp., the research team has made a lot of progress in getting the catoms to bond together and even share power. Video  

Think of each catom as a tiny robot or computer that has computational power, memory and the ability to store and share power. Right now, each catom has 24 electromagnets around its circumference. Based on whether the electromagnets are powered on or off decides how the catoms are moved into position with each other. The robots will harness these forces to achieve their goals.

"They talk to each other all the time and move together or apart," explained Goldstein. "In the long term, we'll use electrostatic forces. We'll create it by putting a voltage on them."

When will these shape-shifting robots leave the lab and enter our lives? It's difficult to put an exact timeline on it, but Goldstein said he expects to see them functioning in the real world within five to 25 years.

"It will have a massive change on the way we do everything," he added. "You'll essentially be able to sit in the same room with somebody who's not there… The 3D model would pick up the voice and a real-time image of the person its replicating over the Internet. It's not so far fetched. MP3s and movies are all encoded strings of bits today. Instead of having speakers and microphones, we'll have claytronics."



Additional Resources
Forrester Consulting - Optimizing Users and Applications in a Mobile World
WHITE PAPER
Solving application issues over the WAN requires careful consideration. Based on their independent research, Forrester Consulting offers recommendations on how to tackle application performance issues, insufficient bandwidth and the inability to quickly restore users in a disaster.

Read now.

Security KnowledgeVault
WHITE PAPER
Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All
WHITE PAPER
New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

App Development White Papers
The Keys to Distributed & Agile Application Development
How leading firms are winning with strategies for efficient application development, without relying on co-location.
Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI
Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will...
All App Development White Papers
App Development Webcasts
Reduced TCO for Communications Applications with New Oracle SPARC Servers
In this webcast learn how Oracle's new SPARC T4 servers and SPARC Supercluster deliver the security, performance, and scalability required for 4G network...
Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
All App Development Webcasts
Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter
  1. View all newsletters | Privacy Policy
IT Jobs