Claytronics
Arun K, Joseph Mattamana
Electronics And Communication Department

College Of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram

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Abstract
‘Claytronics’ is the concept of the future which aims to break the barrier in transferring and transforming
tangible 3D objects. The concept basically is to make an object to be composed of millions of programed
nano scale robots and to move them relative to each other in a controlled coordinated manner to change
shape and other properties of the body. Claytronics consists of individual components called claytronic
atoms or ‘Catoms’. As the actual hardware is to manipulate itself to whatever desired form each catoms
should consist of CPU, a network device for communication, single pixel display, sensors, a means to adhere
with each other and power source. Organizing all of the communication and actions between millions of
catoms also require highly advanced algorithms and programing language. This idea is broadly referred to
as also ‘programmable matter’. Claytronics has the potential to greatly affect many areas of daily life, such
as telecommunication, human-computer interface, entertainment etc

Introduction
Claytronics is a form a programmable matter that takes
the concept of modular robots to a new extreme and is
expected to make a new revolution in communication
sector. The concept of modular robots has been around for
some time. In general the goal of these projects was to
adapt to the environment to facilitate, for example,
improved locomotion. One of the primary goals of
claytronics is to form the basis for a new media type,
pario. Pario, a logical extension of audio and video, is a
media type used to reproduce moving 3D objects in the
real world. A direct result of our goal is that claytronics
must scale to millions of micron-scale units. Having
scaling (both in number and size) as a primary design goal
impacts the work significantly.
The long term goal of this is to render physical artifacts
with such high fidelity that our senses will easily accept
the reproduction for the original.When this goal is
achieved we will be able to create an environment, which
could be synthetic reality, in which a user can interact
with computer generated artifacts as if they were the real
thing. Synthetic reality has significant advantages over
virtual reality or augmented reality. For example, there is
no need for the user to use any form of sensory
augmentation, e.g., head mounted displays or haptic
feedback devices will be able to see, touch, pick-up, or
even use the rendered artifactsClaytronics is made up of individual components, called
catoms—for Claytronic atoms—that can move in three
dimensions (in relation to other catoms), adhere to other
catoms to maintain a 3D shape, and compute state
information (with possible assistance from other catoms
in the ensemble). Each catom is a self-contained unit with
a CPU, an energy store, a network device, a video output
device, one or more sensors, a means of locomotion, and a
mechanism for adhering to other catoms.
A Claytronics system forms a shape through the
interaction of the individual catoms. For example,
suppose we wish to synthesize a physical “copy” of a
person. The catoms would first localize themselves with
respect to the ensemble. Once localized, they would form
an hierarchical network in a distributed fashion. The
hierarchical structure is necessary to deal with the scale of
the ensemble; it helps to improve locality and to facilitate
the planning and coordination tasks.
The goal (in this case, mimicking a human form) would
then be specified abstractly, perhaps as a series of
“snapshots”or as a collection of virtual deforming
“forces”, and then broadcast to the catoms. Compilation
of the specification into local actions would then provide
each catom with a local plan for achieving the desired
global shape. At this point, the
catoms would start to move around each other using
forces generated on-board, either magnetically or
electrostatically, and adhere to each other using, for
example, a Nano fiber-adhesive mechanism. Finally, the
catoms on the surface would display an image; rendering
the colour and texture characteristics of the source
object.Except for taste and smell it will be an exact replica
that is, for the other three senses there won’t be any
difference between original and replica. If the source
object begins to move, a concise description of the
movements would be broadcast allowing the catoms to update their positions by moving around each other. The
end result will bea real time replica of the object and thus
next leap in communication industry.

Claytronic Hardware
A fundamental requirement of Claytronics is that the
system must scale to very large numbers of interacting
catoms and hardware part deals with designing of catoms.

Design of catoms should besimple, and each will have
atleast following four capabilities:
1) Computation: It is believed that catoms could
take advantage of existing microprocessor
technology. Given that some modern
microprocessor cores are now under a square
millimeter, they believe that a reasonable amount
of computational capacity should fit on the
several square millimetres of surface area
potentially available in a 2mm-diameter catom.
2) Motion: Although they will move, catoms will
have no moving parts. This will enable them to
form connections much more rapidly than
traditional micro robots, and it will make them
easier to manufacture in high volume. Catoms
will bind to one another and move via
electromagnetic or electrostatic forces,
depending on the catom size. Imagine a catom
that is close to spherical in shape, and whose
perimeter is covered by small electromagnets. A
catom will move itself around by energizing a
particular magnet and cooperating with a
neighbouring catom to do the same, drawing the
pair together. If both catoms are free, they will
spin equally about their axes, but if one catom is
held rigid by links to its neighbours, the other
will swing around the first, rolling across the
fixed catom's surface and into a new position.
Electrostatic actuation will be required once
catom sizes shrink to less than a millimeter or
two. The process will be essentially the same, but
rather than electromagnets, the perimeter of the
catom will be covered with conductive plates. By
selectively applying electric charges to the
plates, each catom will be able to move relative
to its neighbours.
3) Power: Catoms must be able to draw power
without having to rely on a bulky battery or a
wired connection. Under a novel resistor-
network design the researchers have developed,

only a few catoms must be connected in order for
the entire ensemble to draw power. When
connected catoms are energized, this triggers
active routing algorithms which distribute power
throughout the ensemble.
4) Communications: Communications is perhaps
the biggest challenge that researchers face in
designing catoms. An ensemble could contain
millions or billions of catoms, and because of the
way in which they pack, there could be as many
as six axes of interconnection.At present a lot of
emphasis is put on hardware part and with the
development of nano-technology hardware part
will be a reality, the next challenge is software
(or program part of it).

The following are some catoms-
• Planar catoms
• Electrostatic latches
• Stochastic catoms
• Giant helium catoms
• MEMS sphere
In the future with the development of nanotechnology the
hardware hurdle will be crossed and next hurdle will be
software

Claytronic Software
The usual programming languages like C++ or Java are
not suitable fora massively distributed system composed
of numerous resource-limited catoms. It is also difficult to
think of programing in these languages and debugging
errors is even harder, for this special high level language
withmore abbreviated syntax and a different style of
command is required.The goal of a claytronics matrix is
to dynamically form three dimensional shapes. However,
the vast number of catoms in this distributed network
increases complexity of micro-management of each
individual catom. So, each catom must perceive accurate
position information and command of cooperation with its
neighbors. In this environment, software language for the
matrix operation must convey concise statements of high-
level commands in order to be universally distributed.
Specially for this purpose two new programming
languages are being developed-
1) Meld
2) Locally Distributed Predicates (LDP).

Meld
Meld is a declarative language, a logic programming
language developed for programming catoms. By using
logic programming, the code for an ensemble of robots
can be written from a global perspective, enabling the
programmer to concentrate on the overall performance of
the claytronics matrix rather than writing individual
instructions for every one of the thousands to millions of
catoms in the ensemble. This dramatically simplifies the
thought process for programming the movement of a
claytronics matrix and also consumes 20 times less
memory than C++.

Meld use a collection of facts and a set of production rules
for combining existing facts to produce new ones. Each
rule specifies a set of conditions (expressions relating
facts and pieces of facts), and a new fact that can be
proven (i.e., generated safely) if these conditions are
satisfied. As a program is executed, the facts are
combined to satisfy the rules and produce new facts which
are in turn used to satisfy additional rules. This process,
called forward chaining, continues until all provable facts
have been proven. A logic program, therefore, consists of
the rules for combining facts while the execution
environment is the set of base facts that are known to be
true before execution begins.

Conclusion
Expect the revolution to occur in a few years to half a
century, just a few barriers to be broken and the humanity
will not look back. As giant companies like Intel
competes to crack the problem of nanotechnology and as
algorithms get better, this will be a reality.

References
1. cs.cmu.edu/~claytronics/
2. en.wikipediawiki/Claytronics
3. techresearch.intelarticles/Exploratory/15
00.htm
4. http://post-
gazettepg/05136/505033.stm
5. jumpingelectronsScience/Claytroni
cs-Synthetic-Reality.asp
6. youtubewatch?v=bcaqzOUv2Ao