North Carolina State College researchers have developed a kirigami-inspired mechanical pc that makes use of a posh construction of inflexible, interconnected polymer cubes to retailer, retrieve and erase knowledge with out counting on digital elements. Credit score: Yanbin Li, NC State College
North Carolina State College researchers have developed a kirigami-inspired mechanical pc that makes use of a posh construction of inflexible, interconnected polymer cubes to retailer, retrieve and erase knowledge with out counting on digital elements. The system additionally features a reversible characteristic that enables customers to regulate when knowledge enhancing is permitted and when knowledge ought to be locked in place.
Mechanical computer systems are computer systems that function utilizing mechanical elements somewhat than digital ones. Traditionally, these mechanical elements have been issues like levers or gears. Nevertheless, mechanical computer systems will also be made utilizing constructions which are multistable, that means they’ve a couple of steady state—consider something that may be folded into a couple of steady place.
“We had been fascinated by doing a pair issues right here,” says Jie Yin, co-corresponding writer of a paper on the work and an affiliate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State. “First, we had been fascinated by creating a steady, mechanical system for storing knowledge.
“Second, this proof-of-concept work centered on binary computing features with a dice being both pushed up or pushed down—it is both a 1 or a 0. However we expect there may be potential right here for extra advanced computing, with knowledge being conveyed by how excessive a given dice has been pushed up. We have proven inside this proof-of-concept system that cubes can have 5 or extra totally different states. Theoretically, which means a given dice can convey not solely a 1 or a 0, but in addition a 2, 3 or 4.”
The paper is printed within the journal Science Advances.
The basic items of the brand new mechanical pc are 1-centimeter plastic cubes, grouped into practical items consisting of 64 interconnected cubes. The design of those items was impressed by kirigami, which is the artwork of chopping and folding paper. Yin and his collaborators have utilized the ideas of kirigami to three-dimensional supplies which are lower into related cubes.
When any of the cubes are pushed up or down, this modifications the geometry—or structure—of the entire related cubes. This may be completed by bodily pushing up or down on one of many cubes, or by attaching a magnetic plate to the highest of the practical unit and making use of a magnetic area to remotely push it up or down. These 64-cube practical items could be grouped collectively into more and more advanced metastructures that permit for storing extra knowledge or for conducting extra advanced computations.
The cubes are related by skinny strips of elastic tape. To edit knowledge, it’s a must to change the configuration of practical items. That requires customers to drag on the perimeters of the metastructure, which stretches the elastic tape and means that you can push cubes up or down. Whenever you launch the metastructure, the tape contracts, locking the cubes—and the information—in place.
“One potential software for that is that it permits for customers to create three-dimensional, mechanical encryption or decryption,” says Yanbin Li, first writer of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at NC State. “For instance, a particular configuration of practical items might function a 3D password.
“And the data density is kind of good,” Li says. “Utilizing a binary framework—the place cubes are both up or down—a easy metastructure of 9 practical items has greater than 362,000 attainable configurations.”
“However we’re not essentially restricted to a binary context,” says Yin. “Every practical unit of 64 cubes could be configured into all kinds of architectures, with cubes stacked as much as 5 cubes excessive. This enables for the event of computing that goes properly past binary code. Our proof-of-concept work right here demonstrates the potential vary of those architectures, however now we have not developed code that capitalizes on these architectures. We might be fascinated by collaborating with different researchers to discover the coding potential of those metastructures.”
“We’re additionally fascinated by exploring the potential utility of those metastructures to create haptic methods that show info in a three-dimensional context, somewhat than as pixels on a display,” says Li.
Co-corresponding writer of the paper is Hao Su, an affiliate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Shuangye Yu and Yaoye Hong, former Ph.D. college students at NC State; Haitao Qing and Fangjie Qi, present Ph.D. college students at NC State; and Yao Zhao, a former postdoctoral researcher at NC State.
Extra info:
Yanbin Li et al, Reprogrammable and reconfigurable mechanical computing metastructures with steady and high-density reminiscence, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado6476 , www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado6476
Yanbin Li et al, Reprogrammable and reconfigurable mechanical computing metastructures with steady and high-density reminiscence, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2402.17017
Journal info:
arXiv
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North Carolina State College
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Mechanical pc depends on kirigami cubes, not electronics (2024, June 26)
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