Swarming supramolecular robots

Biological robots perform complex biological functions such as cell division.

Microtubule-asters, for example, use extendable legs emanating from a central point to position themselves at the center of the cell or to mechanically pull chromosomes apart.

Their legs are formed by dissipative supramolecular polymerization of tubulin dimers into microtubules, powered by guanosine triphosphate chemical fuel. This Suprabot ERC-CoG proposal aims to make fully synthetic analogous of the microtubule-asters.

Suprabots are multilegged micron-sized supramolecular robots that can change shape, move directionally, and show collective swarming behavior when in close proximity of each other.

A single suprabot leg consists of a supramolecular polymer bundle that is powered by chemical fuels and/or by light under non-equilibrium conditions.

The needed reaction cycles to extend and contract a single leg, and the leg dynamics that are obtained under non-equilibrium conditions are investigated in work package 1. The legs are attached to a central point by accurately controlling (secondary) nucleation in a microfluidic device.

This allows multiple legs to exert forces onto the walls of various microfluidic channels resulting in directed motility in work package 2.

Finally, many suprabots are placed in close proximity, where they push against each other, resulting in collective ensemble-behavior.

This leads to dynamic suprabot-lattices and collective swarm rotation if supplied with enough chemical energy or light in work package 3.

Suprabots compete for shared resources and can develop predatory behavior.Suprabot serves as an integrative platform to bring together so far disjoint concepts in Supramolecular Systems Chemistry and Swarm Robotics, to bring us closer to biological-like functions in fully artificial chemical systems.