CS 549 NANOROBOTICS
Spring 2008
December 27, 2007
Nanoelectromechanical Systems (NEMS) are the new frontier in miniaturization, beyond MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems), which are now a multi-billion dollar industry. Nanometer-scale devices have dimensions comparable to the atoms and molecules that make up all matter, living or inanimate. Control over the structure of matter at the atomic or molecular scale will trigger a major revolution in human-made artifacts. For example, applications such as artificial cells or cell repair robots will become possible.
This course will focus on nanorobotics, which we will interpret as: (i) the design and fabrication of robots with overall dimensions at or below the micrometer range and made of nanoscopic components; (ii) programming and coordination of large numbers of such nanorobots; and (iii) programmable assembly of nanoscale components either by manipulation with SPMs (Scanning Probe Microscopes) or other robotic devices, or by directed self-assembly.
The course has three parts. The first addresses programming issues. Nanorobots are likely to be very simple (at least initially) and of limited capabilities. A single nanorobot may not be able to do much, but a large number of them can have a significant effect and tackle complicated tasks. How are such "swarms" of robots to be controlled and programmed? This is an area of work that falls within distributed robotics and so-called Artificial Life (AL). The inspiration for much of this work comes from Biology. We will look at some of the AL literature and also at some of the biological systems that provide examples of such swarm intelligence. Specifically, we will consider bacteria, ants and the human immune system.
The second part deals with the construction of nanorobotic hardware. We will discuss sensors, actuators, controllers, power, communications, and interfaces. Because this area is still in its first stages, we will also look at the microrobotics field for inspiration. As a guiding conceptual project we will study what it would take to build a (non-reproducing) artificial bacterium capable of moving in a liquid in response to sensory stimuli.
Finally, the third part will discuss a promising approach to building NEMS (including nanorobots), which involves the use of SPMs as robot manipulators to assemble molecules or other nanoscale components. SPMs serve both as sensors and manipulators with atomic or molecular resolution. We will focus on Atomic Force Microscopes (AFMs) and address such issues as programming for manipulation, and how to deal with spatial uncertainties that arise from thermal drift, actuator creep and hysteresis, and so on.
Students are expected to gain in this course an understanding of the state of the art in nanorobotics. Nanorobotics is inherently interdisciplinary, and the course is open to students in any natural science or engineering field. Each student is expected to delve in depth into those topics that are appropriate to her or his background. For example, CS students should become proficient in the programming and coordination issues discussed in the course. Nanorobotics is a fundamental technology needed in the physically-embedded, massively distributed systems that are expected to replace (or at least supplement) the world wide web in the future.
Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:30 - 4:45 p.m.
Room: KAP 160 -- Note change of room.
Instructor: Prof. Aristides A. G. Requicha, SAL 202, requicha "At' usc.edu
Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m – 12:00 noon
TA: Lu Wang, luwang "At' usc.edu. Office hours: Thursdays, 3-4 pm in SAL 211.
Prerequisites: Graduate standing in any science or engineering discipline. Knowledge of (macro) robotics useful, but not required.
Text: None. Readings from the recent literature. A few references are listed below, and a complete list will be supplied in class. The papers covered in the class presentations are listed in the Course Organization page, and a few hard-to-get papers are linked to that page. Most journal papers are available on the web at the journals' sites. To access journal sites at no cost you will need either (1) to be in a USC machine; (2) to login through VPN; or (3) to use a "library proxy" machine -- click here for more information. The book chapters, unfortunately, are not on the web, and I can't copy them for you because of copyright problems. I have asked the Seaver Science library to put all the books in the reference list on reserve on 2 or 3 hours loan.
Approach: Lectures, discussions, and student presentations.
Assignments: There will be a midterm exam and (perhaps) a final. In addition to the exam(s), grades will be based on the students' contributions to class presentations and discussions, and on either a project or a term paper. Typical term papers will provide a critical literature review of subjects not covered in class but related to the course material, or propose research directions (which might lead to theses). Students who prefer hands-on projects can work on software development, simulations, experiments using the SPMs in the Lab for Molecular Robotics or do anything else that is course-related. These projects are typically harder to do than term papers, but students also tend to learn more by doing a project than a paper. All projects and term paper topics must be approved by the instructor on the basis of short proposals submitted by the students before embarking on the work. Term papers and projects will be due approximately a week before the end of classes. Collaborative projects are encouraged, especially with teams composed by students of different disciplines. See Course Organization for more information.
References:
H. C. Berg, Random Walks in Biology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, Revised Edition, 1993.
E. Bonabeau, M. Dorigo and G. Theralaz, Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1999. (Santa Fé Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity.)
V. Braitenberg, Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychlogy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984.
S. Camazine, J. L. Deneubourg, N. R. Franks, J. Sneyd, G. Theraulaz and E. Bonabeau, Self-Organization in Biological Systems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
K. Eric Drexler, Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1992.
R. A. Freitas, Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume 1: Basic Capabilities. Austin, TX: Landes Bioscience, 1999.
D. Sarid, Scanning Force Microscopy. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1994.
L. A. Segel and I. R. Cohen, Design Principles for the Immune System and Other Distributed Autonomous Systems. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2001. (Santa Fé Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity.)
R. Wiesendanger, Scanning Probe Microscopy and Spectroscopy: Methods and Applications. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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