THOUGH not famed for their intellect, single-celled organisms have already demonstrated a surprising degree of intelligence. Now a team at the University of the West of England (UWE) has secured 拢228,000 in funding to turn these organisms into engineering robots.
In recent years, single-celled organisms have been used to control six-legged robots, but Andrew Adamatzky at UWE wants to go one step further by making a complete 鈥渞obot鈥� out of a plasmodium slime mould, , a commonly occurring mould that moves towards food sources such as bacteria and fungi, and shies away from light.
Affectionately dubbed Plasmobot, it will be 鈥減rogrammed鈥� using light and electromagnetic stimuli to trigger chemical reactions similar to a complex piece of chemistry called the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, which Adamatzky previously used to build liquid logic gates for a synthetic brain. By understanding and manipulating these reactions, says Adamatzky, it should be possible to program Plasmobot to move in certain ways, to 鈥減ick up鈥� objects by engulfing them and even assemble them.
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鈥淚t should be possible to program it to move, to pick up objects and even assemble them鈥�
Initially, Plasmobot will work with and manipulate tiny pieces of foam, because they 鈥渆asily float on the slime鈥�, says Adamatzky. The long-term aim is to use such robots to help assemble the components of micromachines, he says.
