Robot pebbles: One centimeter modules for programmable matter through self-disassembly

• Main Authors: Knaian, Ara N. (Contributor), Gilpin, Kyle W (Author), Rus, Daniela L (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Bits and Atoms (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (Contributor), Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (Contributor), Rus, Daniela L. (Contributor), Gilpin, Kyle W. (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2012-06-01T17:44:10Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 This paper describes the design, fabrication, and experimental results of a programmable matter system capable of 2D shape formation through subtraction. The system is composed of autonomous 1cm modules which use custom-designed electropermanent magnets to bond, communicate, and share power with their neighbors. Given an initial block composed of many of these modules latched together in a regular crystalline structure, our system is able to form shapes by detaching the unnecessary modules. Many experiments show that the modules in our system are able to distribute data at 9600bps to their neighbors with a 98.5% success rate after four retries, and the connectors are able to support over 85 times the weight of a single module.