| Autor: |
Taghavi, Milad, Wang, Wei, Shim, Kyubum, Zhang, Jinsong, Cohen, Itai, Apsel, Alyssa |
| Zdroj: |
Science Robotics; 11/13/2024, Vol. 9 Issue 96, p1-10, 10p |
| Abstrakt: |
Increasingly functional microscopic machines are poised to have massive technical influence in areas including targeted drug delivery, precise surgical interventions, and environmental remediation. Such functionalities would increase markedly if collections of these microscopic machines were able to coordinate their function to achieve cooperative emergent behaviors. Implementing such coordination, however, requires a scalable strategy for synchronization—a key stumbling block for achieving collective behaviors of multiple autonomous microscopic units. Here, we show that pulse-coupled complementary metal-oxide semiconductor oscillators offer a tangible solution for such scalable synchronization. Specifically, we designed low-power oscillating modules with attached mechanical elements that exchange electronic pulses to advance their neighbor's phase until the entire system is synchronized with the fastest oscillator or "leader." We showed that this strategy is amenable to different oscillator connection topologies. The cooperative behaviors were robust to disturbances that scrambled the synchronization. In addition, when connections between oscillators were severed, the resulting subgroups synchronized on their own. This advance opens the door to functionalities in microscopic robot swarms that were once considered out of reach, ranging from autonomously induced fluidic transport to drive chemical reactions to cooperative building of physical structures at the microscale. Editor's summary: In nature, coordinated behaviors occur among various groups of organisms. Achieving similar synchronization and coordination in microscopic devices and robots could open new possibilities in their functionality. Taghavi et al. demonstrated autonomous synchronization in low-power oscillating modules made from pulse-coupled complementary metal oxide semiconductor oscillators that can enable wavelike collective behaviors. The authors showed that the connected oscillators could exchange electronic pulses until the system was synchronized and that they were robust to external disturbances or individual oscillator failure. —Amos Matsiko [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Databáze: |
Complementary Index |
| Externí odkaz: |
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