Programming Self-Assembling Systems via Physically Encoded Information

“…The three-level approach provides a high-level description for designing self-assembling systems via physically encoded information [2,3,[5][6][7][8]. In this section, the three-level approach is extended to include our staging strategy by exploiting component physical features (morphological information) at different time intervals during the self-assembly process [7].…”

Section: The Three-level Approach and Stagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The algorithm repeats, and halts when all time intervals have been completed in sequence. Pseudocode for this algorithm is provided in [2].…”

Section: Fits Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The designs for both environments result from earlier experiments conducted by the authors [6,8]. Detailed specifications of 2D and 3D components, and their respective environments, are provided in [2].…”

Section: Level 3: Physical Realization Of Rule Setmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the physical component design space used here, there are 1,665 and 53,977,737 unique 2D and 3D component types, respectively [2,4]. The number of resulting self-assembled structures constructed from these component types depends on the sequence of assembly steps.…”

Section: Non-staged Versus Staged Self-assemblymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Staging the Self-Assembly Process: Inspiration from Biological Development

et al. 2014

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One of the practical challenges facing the creation of self-assembling systems is being able to exploit a limited set of fixed components and their bonding mechanisms. The method of staging divides the self-assembly process into time intervals, during which components can be added to, or removed from, an environment at each interval. Staging addresses the challenge of using components that lack plasticity by encoding the construction of a target structure in the staging algorithm itself and not exclusively in the design of the components. Previous staging strategies do not consider the interplay between component physical features (morphological information). In this work we use morphological information to stage the self-assembly process, during which components can only be added to their environment at each time interval, to demonstrate our concept. Four experiments are presented, which use heterogeneous, passive, mechanical components that are fabricated using 3D printing. Two orbital shaking environments are used to provide energy to the components and to investigate the role of morphological information with component movement in either two or three spatial dimensions. The benefit of our staging strategy is shown by reducing assembly errors and exploiting bonding mechanisms with rotational properties. As well, a doglike target structure is used to demonstrate in theory how component information used at an earlier time interval can be reused at a later time interval, inspired by the use of a body plan in biological development. We propose that a staged body plan is one method toward scaling self-assembling systems with many interacting components. The experiments and body plan example demonstrate, as proof of concept, that staging enables the self-assembly of more complex morphologies not otherwise possible.

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