Engineers develop new material that can ‘think’; to understand

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the United States, in collaboration with the US Air Force, have for the first time developed an integrated circuit from a “thinking” malleable material made of rubber polymers.

The research, published in the journal Nature, highlights innovations in materials engineering. Integrated circuit construction in a non-semiconductor material is a pioneer in this field.

It is also exceptional that the material made of rubber can distinguish between different mechanical compressive forces and describe each of them. See the video.

According to the researchers, the created component is able to verify the forces around it and calculate the best adaptive response to that stimulus.

The information is retrieved and encoded in binary form in the material itself and no extra tools are required for the task.

By making an analogy with the human body, lead scientist Ryan L. Harne explains that “the soft polymer material can act like a brain that can receive processed digital information strings, resulting in new digital information strings. control reactions.”

According to the researchers, this technology could be used on a wide variety of fronts, such as search and rescue, infrastructure repairs and bio-hybrid materials.

But this is just the beginning. Engineers want to develop a technique so that the material can visually recognize stimuli and be able to react and avoid anything that might get in its way, just as it can “think” of a strategy while it’s being played.

ARTICLE Nature: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05004-5