America creates materials that can think and feel

When someone taps you on the shoulder, organized sensors in the skin send a message to the brain. The brain then processes the information and directs you to look left or right in the direction of the clapper. Now, researchers from Penn State University (PSU) and the US Air Force have harnessed this mechanical information processing and integrated it into a material capable of "thinking and feeling." .

According to research published in the journal Nature on August 24, the new material relies on integrated circuits, often consisting of many electronic components placed on a single soft semiconductor material such as silicon to process information in a Similar to the role of the brain in the human body.

Integrated circuit materials can sense and react to input signals such as mechanical force.

"Almost any material around us can be used to create integrated circuits with the ability to perform computational operations," said Ryan Harne, associate professor of mechanical engineering at PSU, the study's lead author. .

"We have created the first example of an engineering material that can simultaneously sense, think and act in the presence of mechanical stress, without the need for additional circuitry to process those signals. The material. The soft polymer acts like a brain: receives digital sequences of information, which are then processed and generated new digital sequences of information to drive responses," explains Harne.

The material's circuits are reconfigurable to recognize combinational logic: when the material receives an external stimulus, it converts the input signal into electrical information, which then processes it to produce an output signal. .

Materials can even use mechanical force to perform complex calculations, or detect radio frequencies to send light signals for applications such as automated search and rescue systems. It can also be incorporated into biohybrid materials to locate, isolate and remove airborne contaminants.

In the next stage, the team wants to further improve the material so that it can decode image data similar to how it "senses" physical signals.

"Our goal is to develop a material that demonstrates autonomous navigation in the environment by seeing signs, following them, and staying away from adverse mechanical forces, such as something that's on top of it," Harne added.