FRACTAL ROBOTS

Submitted by

STUDENT NAME : Bryce Fernandes

ROLL NO : 73
BRANCH/SECTION : Mechanical ‘D’
REG. NO : 110909087
E-MAIL ID : brycefernandes93@gmail.com
CONTACT NO. : 9008783005

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING

MANIPAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
(A constituent Institute of MANIPAL UNIVERSITY)
MANIPAL - 576 104, KARNATAKA, INDIA
 Fractal Robots

INDEX

SL. NO. CONTENTS PAGE

NO.

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 FRACTAL ROBOT MECHANISM 3

3 MOVEMENT ALGORITHMS 8

4 SELF REPAIR 9

5 APPLICATIONS OF FRACTAL ROBOTS 12

6 LIMITATIONS 15

7 CONCLUSION 16

8 REFERENCES 16

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 0

 Fractal Robots

1.Introduction

The birth of every technology is the result of the quest for automation of

some form of human work. This has led to many inventions that have made

life easier for us. Fractal Robot is a science that promises to revolutionize

technology in a way that has never been witnessed before.

The principle behind Fractal Robots is very simple. You take some cubic

bricks made of metals and plastics, motorize them, put some electronics

inside them and control them with a computer and you get machines that

can change shape from one object to another. Almost immediately, you can

now build a home in a matter of minutes if you had enough bricks and

instruct the bricks to shuffle around and make a house! It is exactly like kids

playing with Lego bricks and making a toy hose or a toy bridge by snapping

together Lego bricks-except now we are using computer and all the work is

done under total computer control. No manual intervention is required.

Fractal Robots are the hardware equivalent of computer software.

1.1 What are Fractals?

A fractal is anything which has a substantial measure of exact or statistical

self-similarity. Wherever you look at any part of its body it will be similar to

the whole object.

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 1

 Fractal Robots

A Fractal Robot physically resembles itself according to the definition above.

The robot can be animated around its joints in a uniform manner. Such robots

can be straight forward geometric patterns/images that look more like

natural structures such as plants. This patented product however has a cubic

structure. The figure below shows a collection of such cubes.

Fractal Robots start at one size to which half size or double size cubes can be

attached and to each of these half size/double size cubes can be attached

respectively. This is what makes them fractal. So a fractal cube can be of any

size. The smallest expected size is between 1000 and 10,000 atoms wide.

These cubes are embedded with computer chips that control their

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 2

 Fractal Robots

movement. Thus they can be programmed to configure themselves into any

shape. The implication of this concept is very powerful. This concept can be

used to build buildings, bridges, instruments, tools and almost anything else

you can think of. It can be done with hardly any manual intervention. These

robots can assist in production and manufacture of goods thus bringing down

the manufacturing price down dramatically.

2.FRACTAL ROBOT MECHANISM

The design is such that it has fewest possible moving parts so that they can

be mass produced. Material requirements have been made as flexible as

possible so that they can be built from metals and plastics which are cheaply

available in industrialized nations but also from ceramics and clays which are

environmentally friendlier and more readily available in developing nations.

The robotic cubes are assembled from face plates which have been

manufactured and bolted to a cubic frame as illustrated in figure below.

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 3

 Fractal Robots

The cube therefore is hollow and the plates have all the mechanisms. Each of

these face plates have electrical contact pads that allow power and data

signals to be routed from one robotic cube to another. The plates also have

45 degree petals that push out of the surface to engage the neighboring face

that allows one robotic cube to lock to its neighbour. The contact pads could

be on the plates themselves or be mounted separately on a purpose built

solenoid operated pad as shown in figure below.

The contact pads are arranged symmetrically around four edges to allow for

rotational symmetry. These contacts are relayed out and only transmit power

when required to do so.

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 4

 Fractal Robots

If they are operating submerged, the contact pads can be forced into contact

under pressure because of the petals, removing most of the fluid between

the gaps before transmitting power through them. To see the internal

mechanisms, we need a cross section of the plate as illustrated in figure

below.

The petals are pushed in and out of the slots with the aid of a motor. Each

petal could be directly driven by single motor or they could be driven as a

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 5

 Fractal Robots

pair with the aid of a flexible strip of metal. The petals have serrated edges

and they engage into the neighboring robotic cube through the 45 degree

slots. The serrated edges of the petals are engaged by either a gear wheel or

a large screw thread running the length of the slot which slides the cubes

along. All active robotic cubes have a limited microcontroller to perform basic

operations such as the communication and control of internal mechanism.

The commands to control a Fractal Robot are all commands for movement

such as move left, right etc and hence the computer program to control the

robot is greatly simplified in that whatever software that is developed for a

large scale robot, it also applies to the smaller scale with no modifications to

the command structure. The largest component of the Fractal Robot system

is the software. Because shape changing robots are fractals, everything

around the robot such as tooling, operating system, software etc must be

fractally organized in order to take advantage of the fractal operation. Fractal

Robot hardware is designed to integrate as seamlessly with software data

structures as possible. So, it is essential that unifying Fractal architecture is

followed to the letter for compatibility and interoperability. Fractal

architecture dominates the functions of the core of the O.S, the data

structures, the implementation of the devices etc. Everything that is

available to the O.S is containerized into fractal data structures that permit

possible compatibility and conversion issues possible.

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 6

 Fractal Robots

The Fractal O. S plays a crucial role in making the integration of the system

seamless and feasible. A Fractal O. S uses a no: of features to achieve these

goals.

1. Transparent data communication

2. Data compression at all levels

3. Awareness of built in self repair.

A Fractal O. S coverts fractally written code into machine commands for

movement. The data signals are fed to a bus (fractal bus). The e3lectronics

have to be kept simple so that they can be miniaturized. Towards this end,

the Fractal Robot uses principally state logic. So its internal design consists if

ROM, RAM and some counters.

Fractal Bus is an important and pioneering advancement for fractal computer

technology. A Fractal bus permits Hardware and software to merge

seamlessly into one unified data structure. It helps in sending and receiving

fractally controlled data. Computer software controls the shaping of objects

that are synthesized by moving cubes around. To reduce the flow of

instructions the message is broadcast to a local machine that controls a

small no. of cubes (typically around 100 cubes). All cubes communicate

using a simple no: scheme. Each is identified in advance and then a no: is

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 7

 Fractal Robots

assigned. The first time around, the whole message and the no. is sent but

the next time only the no. is sent.

3.MOVEMENT ALGORITHMS

There are many mechanical designs for constructing cubes, and cubes come

in different sizes, but the actual movement method is always the same.

Regardless of complexity, the cubes move only between integer positions

and only obey commands to move left, right, up, down, forward and

backward. If it can't perform an operation, it simply reverses back. If it can't

do that as well, the software initiates self repair algorithms. There are only

three basic movement methods.

1. Pick and place

2. N-streamers

3. L-streamers

Pick and place is easy to understand. Commands are issued to a collection of

cubes telling each cube where to go. A command of "cube 517 move left by

2 positions" results in only one cube moving in the entire machine. Entire

collection of movements needed to perform particular operations are worked

out and stored exactly like conventional robots store movement paths. (Paint

spraying robots use this technique.) However there are better structured

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 8

 Fractal Robots

ways to storing movement patterns. It turns out that all movements other

than pick and place are variations of just two basic schemes called the N-

streamer and L-streamer.

4.SELF REPAIR

There are three different kinds of self repair that can be employed in a fractal

robot. The easiest to implement is cube replacement. Instead of discarding

its leg, the robot could reconfigure into a different walking machine and carry

the broken parts within it. The faulty parts are moved to places where their

reduced functionality can be tolerated. Regardless of how many cubes are

damaged, with this self repair algorithm, cubes can detach further and

further back to a known working point and then re-synthesize lost structures.

The more cubes there are in the system, the more likely the system can

recover from damage. If too many cubes are involved, then it will require

assistance from a human operator. In such circumstances, the system will

stop until an operator directs it to take remedial actions. Systems designed

with fractal robots have no redundancy despite having built in self repair.

Every cube in a system could be carrying tools and instrumentation and thus

loss of any one cube is loss of functionality. But the difference in a fractal

robot environment is that the cubes can shuffle themselves around to regain

structural integrity despite loss of functionality. In space and nuclear

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 9

 Fractal Robots

applications (also in military applications), it is difficult to call for help when

something goes wrong. Under those circumstances, a damaged part can be

shuffled out of the way and a new one put in its place under total automation

saving the entire mission or facility at a much lower cost than simply

allowing the disaster to progress. The probability of success is extremely

high in fact. Take for example a triple redundant power supply. Although the

probability of each supply failing is same as the norm for all power supplies

of that type, the chances of more than one failing is very much less. By the

time a third power supply is added the probability becomes miniscule. The

same logic applies to fractal robots when restoring mechanical integrity.

Since there are hundreds of cubes in a typical system, the chance of failure is

very remote under normal circumstances. It is always possible to redundant

tools and then functional integrity can also be restored. This technique gives

the highest possible resilience for emergency systems, space, nuclear and

military applications. There are other levels of repair. A second level of repair

involves the partial dismantling of cubes and re-use of the plate mechanisms

used to construct the cubes. For this scheme to work, the cube has to be

partially dismantled and then re-assembled at a custom robot assembly

station. The cubic robot is normally built from six plates that have been

bolted together. To save on space and storage, when large numbers of cubes

are involved, these plates mechanisms can be stacked onto a conveyor belt

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 10

 Fractal Robots

system and assembled into the whole unit by robotic assembly station as

notionally illustrated in figure below. (By reversing the process, fractal robots

can be dismantled and stored away until needed.)

If any robotic cubes are damaged, they can be brought back to the assembly

station by other robotic cubes, dismantled into component plates, tested and

then re-assembled with plates that are fully operational. Potentially all kinds

of things can go wrong and whole cubes may have to be discarded in the

worst case. But based on probabilities, not all plates are likely to be

damaged, and hence the resilience of this system is much improved over self

repair by cube level replacement. The third scheme for self repair involves

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 11

 Fractal Robots

smaller robots servicing larger robots. Since the robot is fractal, it could send

some of its fractally smaller machines to affect self repair inside large cubes.

This form of self repair is much more involved but easy to understand. If the

smaller cubes break, they would need to be discarded - but they cheaper and

easier to mass produce. With large collections of cubes, self repair of this

kind becomes extremely important. It increases reliability and reduces down

time. Self repair strategies are extremely important for realizing smaller

machines as the technology shrinks down to 1 mm and below. Without self

repair, a microscope is needed every time something breaks. Self repair is an

important breakthrough for realizing micro and nanotechnology related end

goals. There is also a fourth form of self repair and that of self manufacture.

It is the ultimate goal. The electrostatic mechanisms can be manufactured by

a molecular beam deposition device. The robots are 0.1 to 1 micron

minimum in size and they are small enough and dexterous enough to

maintain the molecular beam deposition device.

5.APPLICATIONS OF FRACTAL ROBOTS

One of the biggest problems in civil engineering is to get enough bridges

built as rapidly as possible for mass transit and rapid development of an

economy. Shape changing robots are ideal for making all manners of bridges

from small to the very largest. The bridging technology introduced here can

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 12

 Fractal Robots

be used to patch up earthquake damaged bridges, and they can also be used

as a means for the shape changing robot to cross very rough terrain. To grow

a suspension bridge, the shape changing robot grows a bridge by extending

a rod and it feeds the rod using the L-shape streamer from underneath the

rod. The bridge assembly machine is built principally from simple mass

manufactured repeating cubes that move under computer control, and

reshape into different scaffolds in a matter of seconds.

Fire fighting robots need to enter a building through entrances that may be

very small. The machines themselves may be very large and yet they must

get through and once inside, they may have to support the building from

collapse. To a great extent fire fighting is an art and not completely reliant

technology. You need men and machine to salvage the best out of the worst

possible situations and often application of a little common sense is far

better than sending in the big machines. But equally there are times where

only machines with capabilities far beyond what we have today are capable

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 13

 Fractal Robots

of rescuing a particular situation. The application of shape changing robots is

about those situations.

A fractal robot system with 1 mm cubes can squirt into the human body

through a 2 mm pin hole and rebuild itself inside the body into surgical

instruments and perform the operation without having to

open up the patient.

A size 1mm is just adequate for nearest point of entry into the site of injury

from the surface to perform very complicated surgery to remove cancers,

cysts, blood clots and stones. The machine reaches its objective from nearest

geometric point of entry by threading itself past major blood vessels or

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 14

 Fractal Robots

pinching and severing them if they are not for negotiation. The smaller the

machines the more readily it can be used to directly operate from the

nearest entry point with the least amount of wounding to the patient. A

machine like this could operate on shrapnel victims. As shrapnel is a fractal

object, the wounding it causes is fractal in nature. Thus a fractal machine is

needed to deal with a fractal wound. The faster the machines operate all

around the body, the more likely the patient can survive the damage. In

normal use, this machine must be able to drain bad blood and fluids, detect

and remove all foreign objects that have entered the body, sew up minor

wounds after cleaning and medicating them, sew together blood vessels and

nerve bundles using microsurgery methods before sealing major wounds,

move shattered bone fragments inside the body and hold them in position

for a few days while it sets back, and when necessary, perform amputations

that involves cutting through flesh and bone. This surgical robot as described

is called a Fractal Surgeon.

6.LIMITATIONS

1. Technology is still in infancy

2. Current cost is very high ($1000 per cube for the 1 st generation of cubes,

after which it will reduce to $100 or so).

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 15

 Fractal Robots

3. Needs very precise & flexible controlling software.

7.CONCLUSION

It may take about 4-5 years for this technology to be introduced and tried out

all over the world. But once the first step is taken and its advantages well

understood it will not take much time for it to be used in our everyday life.

Using Fractal Robots will help in saving economy; time etc and they can be

used even for the most sensitive tasks. Also the raw materials needed are

cheap, making it affordable or developing nations also. This promises to

revolutionize technology in a way that has never been witnessed before.

8.REFERENCES

1. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Robotics/Exotic_Robots/Modular_and_fract

al_robots

2. http://www.autopenhosting.org/robots/

3. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Space_Transport_and_Engineering_Metho

ds/Advanced_Manufacturing#Modular_Robot

4. http://www.irdindia.in/journal_ijtarme/pdf/vol2_iss4/20.pdf

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 16