Additively manufacturable micro-mechanical logic gates

Nature Communications
Yuanping SongAndrew J Pascall

Abstract

Early examples of computers were almost exclusively based on mechanical devices. Although electronic computers became dominant in the past 60 years, recent advancements in three-dimensional micro-additive manufacturing technology provide new fabrication techniques for complex microstructures which have rekindled research interest in mechanical computations. Here we propose a new digital mechanical computation approach based on additively-manufacturable micro-mechanical logic gates. The proposed mechanical logic gates (i.e., NOT, AND, OR, NAND, and NOR gates) utilize multi-stable micro-flexures that buckle to perform Boolean computations based purely on mechanical forces and displacements with no electronic components. A key benefit of the proposed approach is that such systems can be additively fabricated as embedded parts of microarchitected metamaterials that are capable of interacting mechanically with their surrounding environment while processing and storing digital data internally without requiring electric power.

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Citations

Jul 28, 2020·Advanced Materials·Hongbao XinBaojun Li
Nov 28, 2019·Physical Review. E·Marc Serra-Garcia
Jan 24, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Lishuai JinDennis M Kochmann
Aug 21, 2019·Science Robotics·M GarradJ Rossiter
Nov 27, 2020·Advanced Science·Jakob A FaberAndres F Arrieta
Mar 23, 2021·Frontiers in Robotics and AI·Michail-Antisthenis TsompanasIoannis Ieropoulos
Oct 8, 2021·Nature·Hiromi YasudaJordan R Raney

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
optical tweezers

Software Mentioned

COMSOL Multiphysics®
Solidworks
COMSOL

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