WO2014031793A2 - Matériaux numériques électromagnétiques - Google Patents

Matériaux numériques électromagnétiques Download PDF

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WO2014031793A2
WO2014031793A2 PCT/US2013/056063 US2013056063W WO2014031793A2 WO 2014031793 A2 WO2014031793 A2 WO 2014031793A2 US 2013056063 W US2013056063 W US 2013056063W WO 2014031793 A2 WO2014031793 A2 WO 2014031793A2
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voxels
electromagnetic
geometry
assembled
voxel
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WO2014031793A3 (fr
WO2014031793A9 (fr
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Neil Adam GERSHENFELD
Nadya M. PEEK
Ernest Rehmi POST
William Kai LANGFORD
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Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
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    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B29—WORKING OF PLASTICS; WORKING OF SUBSTANCES IN A PLASTIC STATE IN GENERAL
    • B29C—SHAPING OR JOINING OF PLASTICS; SHAPING OF MATERIAL IN A PLASTIC STATE, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; AFTER-TREATMENT OF THE SHAPED PRODUCTS, e.g. REPAIRING
    • B29C64/00—Additive manufacturing, i.e. manufacturing of three-dimensional [3D] objects by additive deposition, additive agglomeration or additive layering, e.g. by 3D printing, stereolithography or selective laser sintering
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B33—ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
    • B33Y—ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, i.e. MANUFACTURING OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL [3-D] OBJECTS BY ADDITIVE DEPOSITION, ADDITIVE AGGLOMERATION OR ADDITIVE LAYERING, e.g. BY 3-D PRINTING, STEREOLITHOGRAPHY OR SELECTIVE LASER SINTERING
    • B33Y80/00—Products made by additive manufacturing
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B22—CASTING; POWDER METALLURGY
    • B22F—WORKING METALLIC POWDER; MANUFACTURE OF ARTICLES FROM METALLIC POWDER; MAKING METALLIC POWDER; APPARATUS OR DEVICES SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR METALLIC POWDER
    • B22F10/00—Additive manufacturing of workpieces or articles from metallic powder
    • B22F10/70—Recycling
    • B22F10/73—Recycling of powder
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B29—WORKING OF PLASTICS; WORKING OF SUBSTANCES IN A PLASTIC STATE IN GENERAL
    • B29L—INDEXING SCHEME ASSOCIATED WITH SUBCLASS B29C, RELATING TO PARTICULAR ARTICLES
    • B29L2031/00—Other particular articles
    • B29L2031/34—Electrical apparatus, e.g. sparking plugs or parts thereof
    • B29L2031/3406—Components, e.g. resistors
    • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
    • Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
    • Y02P—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PRODUCTION OR PROCESSING OF GOODS
    • Y02P10/00—Technologies related to metal processing
    • Y02P10/25—Process efficiency

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to digital materials and, in particular, to electromagnetic digital materials.
  • Digital materials are comprised of a small number of types of discrete physical building blocks that may be assembled to form constructions that have a level of versatility and scalability that is analogous to that of digital computation and communication systems. Digital materials promise scalable methods of producing functional things with reconfigurable sets of discrete and compatible parts.
  • a digital material is made up of a discrete number of parts
  • Digital materials have specifically been defined in prior work byffy as having three main properties at the highest level of description: a finite set of components or discrete parts, a finite set of discretized joints of all components in a digital material, and complete control of assembly and placement of discrete interlocking components [Popescu, G., Gershenfeld, N. and Marhale, T., "Digital Materials For Digital Printing", International Conference on Digital Fabrication Technologies, Denver, CO, September 2006].
  • the components can be of any size and shape, made out of various materials, and can fit together in various ways.
  • the components of digital materials generally must satisfy the conditions that each component can be decomposed into a finite number of smaller geometrical shapes, that two components can only make a small finite number of different connections (links), and that the connection between any two components is reversible.
  • Digital systems consist of discrete parts that exhibit error-correcting behavior- if the error remains below the threshold designed into the digital system, the digital system itself remains precise.
  • Digital materials comprise a digital system wherein there is a finite number of components that make up the material, there is a finite number of joints that can be formed between the components, and the assembly process can control how the components are placed [G.ffy, "Digital Materials for Digital Fabrication", Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2007]. These criteria (discrete parts, discrete joints, and explicit placement) allow the resulting material to be multi-material, fully recyclable, and locally tunable using component properties. Since digital parts are error-correcting and self-aligning, they can be assembled into structures with higher accuracy than the placement accuracy of the assembling person or machine.
  • SLS selective laser sintering
  • FDM fused deposition modeling
  • Stereolithography is similar to SLS, but instead of using powder, it uses a vat of liquid with a high power laser to create the part in cured layers [Bourell, D. I,., Leu, M. C. & Rosen, D. W. (Eds,), "Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing: Identifying the Future of Freeform
  • Electron beam melting is another additive process, using an electron beam to melt metals such as titanium in powder form. Similar to previous processes, each part is built one layer at a time, solidified, and then a subsequent layer is built.
  • Current additive manufacturing technologies may utilize the same materials used in manufacturing processes, but the final products rarely behave per material specification, always depend on the machine used to make them for surface resolution, and any error in the part generates wasted material.
  • Digital material systems are a method for fabrication from discrete parts with discrete relative local positioning, instead of continuous variation of composition and location of material, as in an analog fabrication system. Structures that are created from multiple material types allow explicit control over design and optimization parameters. Digital materials can be constructed out of rigid, flexible, transparent, opaque, conductors, insulators, semiconductors, lightweight, or heavy materials. Digital materials allow any or all of these materials to be assembled within the same assembly. A multiple material digital assembly can be built by one multi- material digital assembler machine. Multi-material 3D printers already exist, but the parts are not reversible and the material palette is limited to some rigid photopolymers and elastomers. The materials can be assembled by a digital assembler machine.
  • the assembler may also be a disassembler, or a separate machine may take on the tasks of disassembling, sorting, and delivering parts back to the assembler machine.
  • the reversible connections of digital materials allow the same parts to be reused and reconfigured without waste or degrading the quality of the material.
  • physically digital conductors and insulators can make reconfigurable 3D circuits.
  • Physically digital active electronics also opens up the possibility of having discrete transistors with reversible connections to make devices such as reconfigurable ASICs or other devices that can be reprogrammed by changing the physical configuration of the parts making up a device.
  • a digital material desktop printer now called the MTM Snap, was the first application constructed entirely out of discrete, snap-fit, reversible digital materials
  • the entire structure for the MTM Snap is made up of a finite set of discrete parts, with built-in flexural connections and slots that are all milled as one CAD file on any CNC shopbot machine.
  • the parts for the machine are made of high density polyethylene, which as a material demonstrates great potential to create robust and stiff flexural connections, although it can be made out of many other suitable materials.
  • the entire machine can be fabricated within a day, with additional motors and tool heads installed depending on the fabrication method desired.
  • These digital material printers can print or mill their own parts, in order to replicate and build more machines like themselves.
  • MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms has taken the digital material printer to the next level by incorporating a pick and place mechanism to create a digital material assembler, which is a machine that picks and places each newly fabricated piece to create the final form.
  • Jonathan Hiller has also previously constructed a voxel assembling machine that assembles structures made up of many spherical voxels and deposits an adhesive to bind the spheres together.
  • Hiller' s assemblies were shown to be reversible and reusable by dissolving the adhesive binder and separating the parts by material type for reuse.
  • a press-fit interference connection may be used rather than adhesives for connecting parts.
  • Press-fit connectors permit reversibility and eliminate the use of adhesive binder.
  • a press-fit connection is a joint that holds together by friction or micro bonding between surfaces. Press-fit connections are also referred to as interference fit, because one part is essentially interfering with the space of another.
  • One common press-fit part design is a slotted connection which mates with another slot to create an interference fit connection. This slot acts as a clamp that flexes when its mate part interferes with the space the other part occupies.
  • This clamping mechanism is essentially a flexure, which can be designed and tuned to exert a specific force while also providing a snap-lock release mechanism for ease of reversibility.
  • the flexing part can be used for an interlocking mechanism, which can give a press-fit connection more strength than the material itself. In other words, when two press fit parts are put in maximum tension, the material will break before the connection separates.
  • a release mechanism added to a flexure can provide controlled reversibility, allowing one part to be disconnected from the structure without putting significant force on the rest of the assembly.
  • Digital materials are used for electromagnetic structures, wherein conductive, resistive, and insulating voxels are used to build up any electromagnetic device. Design and assembly methods have been developed for electromagnetic passives like capacitors, strip lines, resistors, and inductors. As a digital material system, electromagnetic digital materials can be included in kits-of-parts with few primitive part types that can produce functionally useful assemblies, which have life cycle efficiencies exceeding that of conventional engineered fabrication methods.
  • Electromagnetic digital materials according to the invention provide a codable and reversible method of assembling electromagnetic structures.
  • the material is made up of voxels, each connected to others around it on a lattice. Their joints are error correcting, reversible, and allow a finite number of connections to be made. This, along with the selection of materials for the voxels, allows local connections to govern specific electromagnetic properties of a larger structure. Types of
  • electromagnetic digital materials developed include resistive, conductive, insulator, dielectric, and semiconductor voxels.
  • Additively assembled electromagnetic digital materials according to the invention offer a new mode of electronic device fabrication, permitting new device geometries and device disassembly and reuse.
  • electromagnetic digital material is made up of a set of voxels made of one or more subsets of identical voxels, at least some of which are made from electromagnetically active materials.
  • Each voxel is assembled, or adapted to be assembled, into a structure according to a regular physical geometry and an electromagnetic geometry, and a majority of the voxels in the set are each reversibly connected, or adapted to be reversibly connected, to at least two other voxels in the set according to the regular physical and electromagnetic geometries.
  • At least some of the voxels in the set may differ in material composition or property from other voxels in the set.
  • Voxels in the set may include voxels made from insulating, conducting, resistive, semiconductor, and/or magnetic materials. Voxels may be arranged into a set of multi-voxel parts and the multi-voxel parts may be assembled into the structure according to a multi-voxel part regular physical geometry and the electromagnetic geometry. The voxels may be reversibly connected, or adapted to be reversibly connected, by press-fit connections. The subsets of voxels may have differing shapes and voxels having differing shapes may be connectable to each other.
  • an electromagnetic structure is made from electromagnetic digital material.
  • the electromagnetic digital material is made up of a set of voxels made of one or more subsets of identical voxels, at least some of which are made from electromagnetically active materials.
  • Each voxel is assembled, or adapted to be assembled, into an electromagnetic structure according to a regular physical geometry and an electromagnetic geometry, and a majority of the voxels in the set are each reversibly connected, or adapted to be reversibly connected, to at least two other voxels in the set according to the regular physical and electromagnetic geometries.
  • At least some of the voxels in the set may differ in material composition or property from other voxels in the set.
  • Electromagnetic structures that can be made from electromagnetic digital material may include, but are not limited to, a circuit lattice, motors, and electronic devices, such as capacitors, inductors, and diodes.
  • an automated process for fabricating an electromagnetic structure includes the steps of assembling a set of voxels, wherein at least some of the voxels are made from electromagnetically active materials, by reversibly connecting the voxels to each other, each of the voxels being reversibly connected, or adapted to be reversibly connected, to at least two other voxels in the set according to a regular physical geometry and an electromagnetic geometry; and assembling the reversibly connected voxels into the electromagnetic structure according to the regular physical geometry and the electromagnetic geometry.
  • the automated process may be controlled by a specially adapted processor implementing a computer algorithm.
  • the electromagnetic properties of the electromagnetic structure produced by the process may be tuned by changing one or more of the following: the ratio of different types of voxels used to assemble the electromagnetic structure, the shape of the different types of voxels used to assemble the electromagnetic structure, the material properties of the different types of voxels used to assemble the electromagnetic structure, and the physical geometry of the electromagnetic structure.
  • Fig. 1 is an exemplary digital material geometry that can be used as an alternative to printed circuit boards for components with SOIC-pitch, according to one aspect of the invention
  • Figs. 2A-D depict exemplary hierarchical voxels fabricated from electromagnetic materials, showing scalability and vertical interconnect between self- similar parts according to one aspect of the present invention
  • Fig. 3 depicts exemplary H and O geometry voxels that provide conductive and resistive elements for digital circuitry when fabricated from copper and polycarbonate;
  • FIG. 4 depicts part of an exemplary prototype inductor in assembly
  • Fig. 5 depicts several exemplary primitive voxels used to populate a lattice structure with interlocking mechanical pieces
  • Fig. 6 depicts examples of multi-voxel parts of different materials that may be used to compose larger structures
  • Fig. 7 depicts several of the primitives shown in Fig. 5 combined into an exemplary multi-voxel part that interlocks with other parts;
  • Fig. 8 depicts an exemplary capacitor assembled from conducting and insulating multi-voxel parts
  • Figs. 9A depicts an exemplary multi-voxel part and Fig. 9B depicts an exemplary inductive coil comprised of conductive parts as shown in Fig. 9A separated by insulating parts;
  • Fig. 10 depicts an alternate exemplary embodiment of a multi-voxel conducting part that has multiple post and hole geometries in one part;
  • Fig. 11 depicts an exemplary square spiral inductor composed of conducting and insulating multi -voxel parts
  • Fig. 12 depicts an exemplary diode ohmic junction created from copper, N-doped silicon, and lead GIK press-fit digital material parts;
  • Figs. 13A-D depict an exemplary embedded actuator composed of digital materials
  • Fig. 14 is depicts an exemplary distributed actuator composed of digital materials
  • Fig. 15 depicts an exemplary schematic of an interdigitated capacitor made up of discrete voxels
  • Fig. 16 depicts simple tiling in the x and y directions for the capacitor of Fig. 15;
  • Fig. 17 depicts the voxel type used for the prototype capacitor and inductor implementations shown in Figs. 18 and 19;
  • Figs. 18 depicts a prototype implementation of a capacitor made from the voxel type shown in Fig. 17;
  • Fig. 19 depicts a prototype implementation of an inductor made from the voxel type shown in Fig. 17;
  • Fig. 20 is a graph of the capacitance of the exemplary discrete capacitor of Fig. 18 as a function of the number of vertical units (capacitance per unit height);
  • Fig. 21 is a graph showing the results of time-domain analysis on the exemplary discrete capacitor of Fig. 18;
  • Fig. 22 is a graph showing the results of time-domain analysis on the exemplary discrete inductor of Fig. 19;
  • FIG. 23 is a magnified view of a portion of the circuit lattice of Fig. 24, constructed using the voxel of Fig. 17;
  • Fig. 24 is a schematic of an exemplary circuit lattice constructed using the voxel of Fig. 17;
  • Fig. 25 is a schematic of an exemplary 3-dimensional circuit lattice constructed using the voxel of Fig. 17;
  • Fig. 26 depicts an exemplary embodiment of a digital inchworm assembler having single degree-of-freedom ratchet-type locomotion
  • Fig. 27 depicts the exemplary digital inchworm assembler of Fig. 26 with a part dispenser
  • Fig. 28 depicts two of the digital inchworm assemblers of Fig. 26 in place, constructing a circuit lattice.
  • Electromagnetic digital materials apply the digital manufacturing paradigm to the assembly of electromagnetic systems. These digital materials are constructed from a small set of discrete parts, made of electromagnetically active materials, such as, but not limited to, conductive, resistive, dielectric, semiconductor, magnetic, or insulating material, that fit together in a coded manner with discrete orientations. Using a finite set of voxels, any electromagnetic component or structure can be assembled, such as inductors, capacitors, filters, striplines, matching networks, feeds, splitters, and couplers.
  • Analog means information or physical matter that is represented as a continuous quantity.
  • Analog material means any continuous material or any material used to create a bulk material with special properties, such as, but not limited to, thermoplastics deposited continuously or a solid block of wax. All additive manufacturing processes use materials that are analog in nature.
  • Digital means information or physical matter that is represented as discrete quantities or values, depending on the user-defined representation of the system.
  • the term 'digital' in digital fabrication is not to be confused with this definition.
  • Digital fabrication means the use of tools and manufacturing processes that permits taking parts as initial CAD representations, and to then create prototypes that are closer to the final product by using analog materials.
  • Digital material means a material made out of components wherein the set of all the components used in a digital material is finite (i.e. discrete parts), the set of the all joints the components of a digital material can form is finite (i.e. discrete joints), and the assembly process has complete control over the placement of each component (i.e. explicit placement).
  • Electromagnetic material or “Electromagnetically active material” means a digital material that is made from a material that can be used in the construction of electromagnetic structures, including, but not limited to, resistive, conductive, insulating, dielectric, semiconductor, and/or magnetic materials.
  • Electromagnetic geometry generally means the electrical and magnetic pathways that together create a specific electromagnetic structure. More specifically, it means the precise configuration of electromagnetic materials required to achieve a specific electrical or magnetic function within an electromagnetic structure. In the context of electromagnetic digital materials, the electromagnetic geometry is the precise physical arrangement of voxels composed of differing materials and differing shapes that is required to achieve the intended function of the electromagnetic structure.
  • Hierarchical digital material means a digital material that consists of components that can connect to self-similar components and have a variable size.
  • Voxel means an individual component of a digital material.
  • a voxel has a finite number of connections to other voxels.
  • Voxels can take the form of shape components or connectors.
  • digital assembly uses a wide range of materials and allows arbitrary sizing with interconnect between self-similar parts at different length scales.
  • the components can achieve this connection through horizontal or vertical assembly.
  • a digital material construction set can be fabricated at many scales.
  • the voxel size within the same structure can range from arbitrarily small to arbitrarily large, limited only by the ability to fabricate voxels at a given scale.
  • hierarchical digital materials allow voxel size to be variable within the same model, a structure can not only consist of multiple types of materials but also have variable feature sizes and density. This hierarchical scalability permits a wider range of applications by allowing tunable construction of assemblies with varying feature sizes and voxel density.
  • the present invention employs electromagnetic digital materials for discrete assembly of electromagnetic structures such as, but not limited to, electronic circuits.
  • electromagnetic structures such as, but not limited to, electronic circuits.
  • electrically conducting and insulating elements any electrical network can be snapped together, as can inductors and capacitors.
  • active electronic components like diodes and transistors can be made, permitting the creation of digital logic circuits.
  • Fig. 1 depicts an example of a digital material geometry which can be used as an alternative to printed circuit boards for components with SOIC-pitch [J. Ward. Additive Assembly of Digital Materials. Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010].
  • Prototype SOIC-pitch circuit boards with conductor and insulator parts roughly 5mm in the longest dimension were assembled. These parts can be hierarchical to change size within the structure or to tune traces or current levels.
  • three sizes of press fit parts are vertically assembled to allow SOIC-pitch electrical components to connect to any exterior face of the structure. Parts shown are made from conductive material 110 and insulating material 120, 130. The entire structure forms a circuit that is reconfigurable and can be disassembled.
  • Figs. 2A and 2B depict exemplary hierarchical voxels fabricated from electromagnetic materials, showing scalability and vertical interconnect between self- similar parts according to an aspect of the present invention.
  • voxels of shape 205 and connector 210 are used in several different sizes to assemble structure 220. Different sizes of voxels 230, 232, 234 of type 205 are interconnected with voxels of the same type 205 and size into horizontal layers 240, 242, 244 by means of connectors 260, 262, 264 of type 210. The layers are then vertically assembled by means of connectors 260, 262, 264 of type 210 in order to connect each layer to other layers of the same or different size.
  • voxels 230 and connectors 260 are fabricated from conducting materials, while voxels 232, 234 and connectors 262, 264 are fabricated from insulating material.
  • Digital material parts may be fabricated from any materials chosen for their electromagnetic properties, as long as they are mechanically compatible for assembly. Suitable materials used in prototypes include, but are not limited to, aluminum, bronze, polycarbonate, and carbon fiber composite sheet stock. These materials were chosen for their suitability as resistive, insulating, or conductive elements, as well as their machining properties. It will be clear to one of skill in the art that many other materials have these properties and therefore would also be suitable.
  • the geometry of the voxels employed depends at least in part on the size of the application envisioned and the number of voxels to be assembled.
  • Exemplary electromagnetic digital material voxels were milled from copper and polycarbonate, their shape deriving from the H and O geometry originally proposed in United States Patent Application Ser. No. 13/669,434, which has been incorporated by reference herein, and in J. Ward, "Additive Assembly of Digital Materials", Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010.
  • Fig. 3 depicts exemplary H 310 and O 320 geometry voxels that provide conductive and resistive elements for digital circuitry when fabricated from copper and polycarbonate, respectively.
  • the voxels employed for the prototype were milled on a mini-mill and are 2.5 mm in width. These parts are small enough to be able to form circuits along with non-digital parts like microcontrollers, in SOIC pitch.
  • Fig. 4 depicts part of an exemplary prototype inductor in assembly.
  • An inductor such as the one depicted in Fig. 4 is made by snapping together the appropriate number of voxels. It will be clear to one of skill in the art that, while many geometries are suitable, as a practical matter the part geometry selected will at least in part depend on how the chosen digital assembler functions in practice.
  • FIG. 5 depicts several primitive voxels used to populate a lattice structure with interlocking mechanical pieces.
  • the feature size scale is 0.0125 inch
  • post and hole diameters are 0.025 inch
  • part thickness is 0.025 inch max
  • unit cell size is 0.050 x 0.050 x 0.025 inch.
  • Other feature sizes may be chosen, so long as the materials used are compatible with the scale.
  • the fabricator To be able to use electromagnetic digital materials, the fabricator generates a voxelized description or code for the part to be constructed (e.g. a capacitor), and then snaps the corresponding parts together to form the part.
  • a voxelized description or code for the part to be constructed e.g. a capacitor
  • a layer of conductive parts is separated by a layer of insulating parts from another layer of conductive parts.
  • the structure in this example, the capacitor
  • the capacitor is to be embedded in a larger electromagnetic system, this can also be constructed from the same digital material (e.g. the capacitor may be connected via a stripline to an inductor). If the electromagnetic structure becomes deprecated, the part can be disassembled into voxels and reused in other
  • electromagnetic structures [0072] The modular structure of electromagnetic digital materials allows them to be used in many electromagnetic applications, including applications that use analog electromagnetics for some of the parts of the structure. This permits novel and hybrid electromagnetic applications to be explored that are not possible with conventional manufacturing geometries, processes, and methods.
  • Structures are assembled from voxels of differing properties on a lattice. Design of these structures can be done by placing each voxel manually, hierarchically, algorithmically, or by other methods. For example, in manual placement, an inductor might be implemented by drawing a conductive helix surrounding a ferromagnetic volume on the lattice. In hierarchical placement, a parameterized model might draw the required conductive and ferromagnetic structures. In algorithmic placement, an initial structure might be placed and then improved via convex optimization of voxel placements.
  • voxels of differing electromagnetic properties have been placed, the lattice is populated with parts specific to the digital assembly process and the feedstock of parts. Ideally, voxels are placed that are no more and no less than the specified volume of material, but, in order to make stable structures with reversible electrical, magnetic, and mechanical contact between voxels, there must be interlocking connections between adjacent voxels.
  • FIG. 1 An example of interlocking elements which can be assembled from one preferred direction (i.e. bottom-up) is embodied by the LEGOTM brand of toy bricks.
  • LEGOTM Two lessons taken from LEGOTM are the plug-and- socket connections between bricks and the use of multi-voxel elements to uniformly fill volumes more quickly than would be possible with individual voxels. There is no loss of generality as long as the assembler can manipulate these multi-voxel elements without undue complication. It is therefore feasible to keep a wider variety of voxels than the fundamental primitives in the assembler's feedstock.
  • the primitive parts shown in Fig. 5 are used to create extended structures. This is an example of hierarchical design, wherein an electromagnetic device is assembled from several copies of two parts.
  • Fig. 6 depicts examples of multi- voxel parts of different materials, which may be used to compose larger structures that take advantage of their conductive, resistive, and insulating properties. The parts are milled from bronze, carbon fiber sheet stock, and polycarbonate. The gender of the connection sites is selected depending on how they occupy the lattice.
  • the feature size of a post 610 in Fig. 6 is 0.3 mm.
  • Fig. 7 depicts several of the primitives shown in Fig. 5, combined into an exemplary multi-voxel part that interlocks with other parts.
  • This exemplary rendering also includes cutouts to allow fabrication by CNC milling with an end mill of diameter comparable to the feature size.
  • Fig. 8 depicts an exemplary capacitor assembled from conducting 810
  • Fig. 9A depicts an exemplary multi-voxel part 910 that has multiple connection sites 920, 930.
  • Fig. 9B depicts an exemplary inductive coil comprised of conductive parts 910 from Fig. 9A separated by small square insulating parts 950.
  • Conducting parts 910 are 1.5 mm by 10 mm, with a post feature 960 size of about 0.3 mm.
  • Fig. 10 depicts an alternate embodiment of a multi-voxel conducting part that has multiple post 1010 and hole 1020 geometries in one part, allowing for more reconfigurability and different resistive properties depending on attachment sites.
  • Fig. 11 depicts an exemplary square spiral inductor composed of conducting 1110 (phosphor bronze) and insulating 1120 (polycarbonate) multi -voxel parts.
  • the values of the electromagnetic structures can be varied by varying the size of the structures themselves. This brings a new design challenge to the design of electronics, as parts of differing values need not necessarily be made the same size. Layouts for devices have the potential to shrink dramatically at the cost of increasing the complexity of the design. However, should size not be a factor, then modules of the same size can easily be made for more simple design constraints by taking the size of the largest part, and populating the lattice around the smaller ones with neutral voxels to build them up to the same size.
  • Adding a conducting element means that not only can any shape be built, but also any arbitrary conductive pathway through the shape. Passive electrical components like inductors, capacitors, and strip-line antennas can be made.
  • Adding a resistive element means that any passive component can be made, and adding semiconducting pieces means that all active components, such as diodes and transistors, can be fabricated.
  • active electronic component made entirely from digital material was the approximately 1 cm wide press-fit, GIK diode ohmic junction created by Vietnamese using copper 1210, N- doped silicon 1220, and lead 1230 GIK digital material parts, as shown in Fig. 12. This proved that active electronics can be built with digital materials. Testing has shown that the diode shown in Fig. 12 functions more or less equivalently to a standard commercial diode. With these active components comes digital logic and the ability to make really interesting computer architectures.
  • Figs. 13A-D embedded actuators for microrobots can be made (Figs. 13A-D), as well as new types of distributed actuators (Fig. 14).
  • Seen in Figs. 13A-D is an exemplary embedded actuator composed of digital materials and having stator core 1310, stator tip 1320, AINiCo magnet 1330, NdFeB magnet 1340, rotor 1350, and coil 1360.
  • Seen in Fig. 14 is an exemplary distributed actuator composed of digital materials and having coil assembly 1410, fixed magnets 1420, magnet channel assembly 1430, and hall effects 1440.
  • Fig. 15 depicts an exemplary schematic of an interdigitated capacitor made up of discrete voxels. This kind of capacitor makes good use of space and is easily implemented on a LegoTM-GIK-type lattice. It can be easily tiled in any dimension (x, y, or z).
  • Fig. 16 depicts simple tiling in the x and y directions for the capacitor of Fig. 15.
  • Fig. 17 depicts the voxel used for the prototype capacitor and inductor implementations shown in Figs. 18 and 19, respectively.
  • the dimensions of the voxel are a height 1710 of 0.12", width 1720 of 0.2", and digit spacing 1730 of 0.05".
  • the exemplary prototype designs are vertical coils, as shown in Figs. 18 and 19, which complete 1 turn every 4 vertical layers. The devices are small enough to be fairly easy to assemble by hand. It took on the order of an hour to assemble both the capacitor and inductor.
  • a capmeter board (David Mellis) was calibrated using a series of known capacitances from lpF to lOOOpF.
  • a plot of the capacitance of the discrete capacitor vs. the number of vertical units (capacitance per unit height) is shown in Fig. 20.
  • 35 conductive voxels make capacitances on the order of 7pF, i.e. the device has a capacitance of 1.3pF per unit height.
  • Capacitance and inductance can be calculated from the amplitude of the input and output waveform as well as the phase shift at a given frequency using the following equations.
  • Val in the sinusoidal input Va2 is the voltage across the ca acitor or inductor, and theta is the phase shift.
  • circuit boards were made out of press-fit parts. With just a conductive and insulating element, it is possible to fabricate any arbitrary electrical network.
  • Fig. 23 is a magnified view of a portion of an exemplary circuit lattice constructed using the voxel 2310 of Fig. 17. The width of the segment shown is less than 5mm.
  • the brass and plastic voxels (Fig. 17) were machined with a 10 mil endmill and were arranged specifically to create the necessary conductive pathways between conventional surface mount components.
  • Fig. 24 is a schematic of an exemplary circuit lattice 2410 constructed using the voxel of Fig. 17 and populated by electronic components 2420, 2430. 2440, 2450.
  • Fig. 23 is a magnified view of a portion of an exemplary circuit lattice constructed using the voxel 2310 of Fig. 17. The width of the segment shown is less than 5mm.
  • the brass and plastic voxels (Fig. 17) were machined with
  • FIG. 25 is a schematic of an exemplary 3-dimensional circuit lattice constructed using the voxel of Fig. 17. As can be seen in Fig. 25, components 2510, 2520, 2530, 2540, 2550 can sit on any face of the 3D circuit board 2560, not just on discrete layers. This allows for higher density circuits than would be possible with conventional multi-layer boards.
  • Electromagnetic digital materials offer a method to construct electromagnetic structures that are error-correcting, fully recyclable, and can be more precise than the machines that assemble them, because, using a finite set of parts (conductive, resistive, and insulating), any passive electromagnetic structure can be built.
  • Fig. 26 depicts an exemplary embodiment of such a digital inchworm assembler 2600, having a ratchet-type mechanism 2610 and exhibiting single degree-of-freedom ratchet-type locomotion.
  • Arm 2620 can move in and out, and passive (non-actuated) pivot 2630 enables arm 2620 to slide over and down the discrete tiles.
  • Fig. 27 depicts the inchworm assembler of Fig. 26 with part dispenser 2710 (and parts 2720).
  • Fig. 28 depicts two of the digital inchworm assemblers 2600 of Fig. 26 in place, constructing a circuit lattice 2810. Assemblers 2600 press-fit into lattice 2810, so they act on local rather than global coordinates and errors (below a certain threshold) are corrected as they go.
  • the assemblers can be very simple machines which are just precise enough to move from one position on the lattice to another. Furthermore, since the assemblers are much smaller than the objects they make, the scheme is scalable to any build volume, so that in order to assemble something more quickly or to make something larger, all that is required is to add more assemblers.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Manufacturing & Machinery (AREA)
  • Materials Engineering (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
  • Optics & Photonics (AREA)
  • Parts Printed On Printed Circuit Boards (AREA)
  • Materials For Medical Uses (AREA)

Abstract

L'invention concerne des matériaux numériques électromagnétiques constitués d'un ensemble de voxels dont certains sont constitués d'un matériau électromagnétiquement actif. Chaque voxel est conçu pour être assemblé pour former une structure en fonction d'une géométrie physique régulière et d'une géométrie électromagnétique, et la majorité des voxels de l'ensemble peut être connectée de manière réversible à d'autres voxels. Des voxels de l'ensemble peuvent différer d'autres voxels de l'ensemble quant à leur composition matérielle et leurs propriétés. Les voxels peuvent être agencés en éléments à plusieurs voxels qui sont assemblés pour former la structure en fonction d'une géométrie physique régulière et d'une géométrie électromagnétique. Les structures électromagnétiques peuvent être produites à partir du matériau numérique électromagnétique et peuvent être fabriquées par un procédé automatisé qui consiste à assembler un ensemble de voxels en connectant les voxels les uns aux autres de manière réversible en fonction d'une géométrie physique régulière et d'une géométrie électromagnétique, et à assembler les voxels connectés de manière réversible pour former la structure électromagnétique.
PCT/US2013/056063 2012-08-21 2013-08-21 Matériaux numériques électromagnétiques WO2014031793A2 (fr)

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Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP3861589A4 (fr) * 2018-11-27 2021-12-15 Antenom Anten Teknolojileri A.S. Matériel de conception d'antenne
FR3121619A1 (fr) * 2021-04-09 2022-10-14 École Nationale Supérieure D'arts Et Métiers Outil de conception de produits en fabrication additive et procédé associé

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US7162324B2 (en) * 2003-01-16 2007-01-09 Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd 3-D object creation system employing voxels
US20080109103A1 (en) * 2006-06-23 2008-05-08 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Digital Assembler for Digital Materials
US20100294954A1 (en) * 2007-12-12 2010-11-25 3M Innovative Properties Company Method for making structures with improved edge definition
US20110123794A1 (en) * 2008-07-25 2011-05-26 Cornell University Apparatus and methods for digital manufacturing

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7162324B2 (en) * 2003-01-16 2007-01-09 Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd 3-D object creation system employing voxels
US20080109103A1 (en) * 2006-06-23 2008-05-08 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Digital Assembler for Digital Materials
US20100294954A1 (en) * 2007-12-12 2010-11-25 3M Innovative Properties Company Method for making structures with improved edge definition
US20110123794A1 (en) * 2008-07-25 2011-05-26 Cornell University Apparatus and methods for digital manufacturing

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP3861589A4 (fr) * 2018-11-27 2021-12-15 Antenom Anten Teknolojileri A.S. Matériel de conception d'antenne
FR3121619A1 (fr) * 2021-04-09 2022-10-14 École Nationale Supérieure D'arts Et Métiers Outil de conception de produits en fabrication additive et procédé associé

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