Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: Joe@stellar.demon.co.uk (Joseph Michael)
Path: brunix!cat.cis.Brown.EDU!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!demon!stellar.demon.co.uk!Joe
Subject: PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS / Shape Changing Robotics Technology
Organization: Stellar Drive
Reply-To: Joe@stellar.demon.co.uk
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Date: Sun, 8 May 1994 19:52:14 +0000
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                     INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS REQUIRED
_______________________________________________________________________________

	A recent patent application has been filed for a SHAPE CHANGING ROBOT.
If anyone is iterested in commercial partnership in developing these robots
please email me - Joe@stellar.demon.co.uk.

	The product can best be described as a highly optimised minimal
cellular robotics technology. The robot has been designed with manufacturing
automation in mind. In terms of flexibility, it is more or less the hardware
equivalent of software. The product applications are limited by the
imagination for customising it to different applications.

	Some of the first application areas that come to mind are military
applications, nuclear disaster control, civil engineering and space
applications, flexible automobile manufacturing .

	The product is called PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS. Under computer control,
you instruct programmable materials to for example turn into a walking machine.
Alternatively, you can turn into a wall or a flat surface etc.
It can usefully deform around objects e.g. you can take several tons of
programmable materials up the stairs and through a narrow door entrance
into a failed nuclear power station to prop up the ceilings, erect lead
walls, pump out dust and smoke, install lighting and cameras etc.

	In military applications, you can for example use it to build bridges
with it that repair themselves and deploy weapons automatically to defend
itself from attacks. You can also use it to lay bunkers, mines and defences
rapidly.

	The robot is put together with technology that has been around since
the sixties and earlier. No new physics, maths, chemistry etc. are involved.

	In big civil engineering projects, programmable materials can be used
to transport equipment, structural supports etc. with a great deal of
automation to complete projects much quicker than they otherwise would
have been.

	Programmable materials are highly fault tolerant robots. You can't kill
programmable materials robots because you have to destroy every bit of it.
Any faulty part is simply rejected and the machine repairs itself because
like a fractal, most of itself is made from more of iteself.

	If you going to post a proposal, please remember that it will take
about a year to put the hardware and software together. A more realistic time
scale is three years for commercial products because the operating system
I am proposing require complete rewrites from normal commercial products.
The electronics would be cubersome using normal CPU technology and for that
reason, I am also proposing a new RISC CPU and ASIC glue logic to get the
job done. The initial costs of bringing the technology to market is around
$3 million per year for three years. That timescale can be brought down to
1.5 years with investment running at $5 million per year. The costs are
recovered quickly through access to publicity, demonstations, seminars
and sales of prototype kit. Huge orders from the Nuclear Industry are
expected because there are no competing systems, and the patent is fresh.

-- 

Joseph Michael
M.D.
English Chit-Chat Limited

Tel (UK) +44 81 800 9914
Fax (UK) +44 81 800 9915
Mobile (UK) +44 836 703945

E-mail Joe@stellar.demon.co.uk

