DescriptionCHEMICAL ROBOTS
BAA 07-21, Addendum 2
White Papers Due: May 3, 2007, no later than 4:00PM ET;
Full Proposals Due: July 2, 2007, no later than 4:00PM ET. Technical Point of Contact: Dr. Mitchell R. Zakin, DARPA/DSO; Ph: (703) 248-1509, Email: baa07-21@darpa.mil;
URL: www.darpa.mil/dso/solicitations/solicit.htm;
Website Submission: https://www.sainc.com/dsobaa/

 

DESCRIPTION
(Note: This BAA Addendum 2 is submitted as a Special Focus Area as described in the original BAA, 07-21.)

The ability to safely and covertly gain access to denied or hostile areas and perform useful tasks provides critical advantages to warfighters over a broad spectrum of military operations. An effective and logistically attractive means for gaining entry to denied areas is to deploy an unmanned platform, such as a robot. However, often the only available points of entry are small openings in buildings, walls, under doors, etc. In these cases, a robot must be soft enough to squeeze or traverse through small openings, yet large enough to carry an operationally meaningful payload.

El texto anterior no está sacado de una novela de ciencia ficción, aunque pueda parecerlo. Es el texto descriptivo de la especificación técnica que el DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), Organismo creado para el desarrollo de avanzados proyectos militares, ha lanzado para la creación de los primeros nanorobots,  los chembots (de Chemical Robots).

Estos chembots están pensados para viajar a largas distancias, modificar su forma en las tres dimensiones, introducirse a través de grietas, por debajo de puertas, reproducirse, atacar, y desaparecer de forma biodegradable sin dejar rastro. de hecho, es mejor leer la especificación:

1. Morphability in all three dimensions;
2. Architectures that can sense and morph responsively to openings, e.g., using local tactile sensing;
3. Flexible backbone structures or architectures that themselves morph or dissolve, then reconstitute - keystone that enables system;
4. Payloads that remain viable after traversal. Hard payloads, including power sources, must be smaller than the largest characteristic size of the opening. Novel soft payloads that morph and reconstitute may be larger than this size;
5. Modest power requirements. ChemBots may be self-powered, self-consuming, or energy-scavenging;
6. Autonomous or user-controlled operation, depending on application. ChemBots must not be tethered to controllers or power sources;
7. Meso-scale in size, preferentially with size-scalable architecture; and
8. Robust over typical range of military operational conditions (temperature, humidity, rain, etc.).
Potential approaches to achieve soft meso-scale robots include, but are not limited to:

1. Gel-solid phase transitions;
2. Non-Newtonian systems (e.g., shear-thinning and -thickening fluids and gels);
3. Shape-memory materials;
4. Electro- and magneto-rheological materials;
5. Electrostatic, electrostrictive, electro-osmotic, electroadhesive, and dielectrophoretic phenomena;
6. Reversible chemical and/or particle association and dissociation;
7. Geometric transitions, e.g., folding phenomena;
8. Modulus-shifting materials; and
9. New classes of materials and/or system architectures.

La especificación original podéis leerla aquí: http://www.darpa.mil/BAA/baa07-21mod2.html

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