Modular Models of Molecular Manufacturing

Today we have a guest blog article from Nato Welch, a freelance web developer and member of CRN's Global Task Force on Implications and Policy:

Recently, BUG Labs has been making a splash in various places in the technology press with their announcement of their BUG modular hardware platform, which they plan to ship this quarter.

From the BUG Labs website:

BUG is a collection of easy-to-use, open source hardware modules, each capable of producing one or more Web services. These modules snap together physically and the services connect together logically to enable users to easily build, program and share innovative devices and applications. With BUG, we don't define the final products -- you do.

The BUG platform's modular approach is reminiscent of popular building-block construction toys beloved of techies for a generation. In addition to a core "BUGbase" GNU/Linux-powered portable unit, BUG Labs will provide snap-in modules in the form of touch-screens, cameras, LCD displays, motion sensors, and the like. The idea is to provide creative users components they need to build the devices they want to build, rather than attempting to anticipate user needs entirely to provide monolithic, ready-made devices.

Although BUG's components are definitely on the human scale, the modularity and open development ethos of the BUG platform highlight it as a good example of one likely development vector for the eventual design and deployment of molecular manufacturing systems.

CRN Task Force member Tom Craver proposed a similar design model for 'nanoblocks', which bear a strong resemblance to BUG platform modules. Each nanoblock could be anything -- motors, computers, sensors, memory, etc. The major differences are that nanoblocks would, of course, be much smaller, would be built to atomically-precise specifications, and would have to be assembled by a fabrication device designed for the nanoblock scale, rather than being hand-assembled.

The striking similarities between Craver's nanoblocks model and the BUG platform suggests to me that we don't even need to presuppose atomically-precise manufacturing in order to design and deploy the kind of infrastructure Craver suggests. Indeed, numerous human-scale automated manufacturing systems and 3D printers are already in progress and showing results today. The big difference between these systems and nanoblock assembly systems seems to consist, first and foremost, of resolution.

To be sure, atomically precise products will have great advantages over their forebears in terms of speed, power, durability, and efficiency. But I wonder if, as the size of components that can be produced for, and assembled by, non-atomically-precise automated fabrication systems shrinks, if they won't just be used to assemble standard components for use in still larger-scale automated fabrication systems previously developed. Perhaps nanoblocks will be used to create 'microblocks', which will then be assembled into BUG modules, which will then, in turn, be assembled into our next PC or mobile phone -- or something we haven't even thought of yet. When it arrives, molecular manufacturing could be designed to just plug in to existing fabrication standards already developed for larger-scale systems in the meantime.

Nato Welch is a freelance web developer who also volunteers for the Acceleration Studies Foundation. As an advocate of free and open source principles that have grown up around software, Nato seeks to discover, describe, and apply such peer-to-peer principles to solving problems surrounding emerging technologies and public policy.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog