Computing’s Past to Unlock 3D-Printed Mechanical Logic Gates for the Future

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Taking a page from the past, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and engineers are combining mechanical computing with 3D printing as part of an effort to create “sentient” materials that can respond to changes in their surroundings, even in extreme environments that would destroy electronic components, such as high radiation, heat or pressure.

Image Caption: A series of mechanical logic gates are 3D-printed using the Large Area Projection Microstereolithography (LAPµSL) method.

Original computers, like Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, were fully mechanical, filled with gears and levers that turned, moved and shifted to solve complex mathematical calculations. After World War II and the rise of vacuum tubes and electronic circuits, mechanical computers mostly went the way of the dodo

However, putting a new twist on the old technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers and contributors from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are 3D printing mechanical logic gates — the basic building blocks of computers capable of performing any kind of math calculations.

Like LEGOs, these 3D-printed logic gates could be used to build just about anything, researchers said, embedded into any type of architected material and programmed to react to its environment by physically changing shape without the need for electricity -- useful in areas of high radiation, heat or pressure. The research was published online today by the journal Nature Communications.

“Certain electric applications are limited, whereas with this system, the material could completely reconfigure itself,” said lead researcher Andy Pascall. "If you embedded logic gates into material, that material could sense something about its environment. It’s a way of having a responsive material; we like to call it a ‘sentient’ material — that could have complicated responses to temperature, pressure, etc. The idea is it’s beyond being smart. It’s responding in a controlled, precise way.”

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and engineers are combining mechanical computing with 3D printing as part of an effort to create “sentient” materials that can respond to changes in their surroundings, even in extreme environments. Pictured, from left, are LLNL researchers Julie Jackson Mancini, Logan Bekker, Andy Pascall and Robert Panas. Photos by Julie Russell/LLNL 

Mechanical logic gates, while not as powerful as typical computers, could prove useful in rovers sent to hostile environments such as Venus, or in low-power computers intended to survive nuclear or electromagnetic pulse blasts that would destroy electronic devices, researchers said. In a Venusian rover, Pascall said scientists could implement a control system so if the rover got too hot, the material could open its pores to allow in more coolant, with no electricity needed.

The devices also could be used in robots sent to collect information on nuclear reactors (e.g., Fukushima) or, while appearing like any type of material, could be concealed inside just about any kind of imaginable structure.

“The nice thing about our design is it’s not limited in scale,” Pascall said. “We can go down to an order of several microns up to as big as you need it to be, and it can be rapidly prototyped. This would be a difficult task without 3D printing.”

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