Over the last decades, MEMS research has focused on the engineering process, but future challenges will consist in adding embedded intelligence to MEMS systems to obtain distributed intelligent MEMS. One intrinsic characteristic of MEMS is their ability to be mass-produced. This, however, poses scalability problems because a significant number of MEMS can be placed in a small volume. Managing this scalability requires paradigm-shifts both in hardware and software parts. Furthermore, the need for actuated synchronization, programming, communication and mobility management raises new challenges in both control and programming. Finally, MEMS are prone to faulty behaviors as they are mechanical systems and they are issued from a batch fabrication process. A new programming paradigm which can meet these challenges is therefore needed. In this project, we propose to develop CO2Dim, which stands for Coordination and Computation in Distributed Intelligent MEMS. CO2DIM is a new programming language based on a joint development of programming and control capabilities so that actuated synchronization can easily be programmed and can scale up to millions of units.
CO2Dim is linked to the Smart Surface, Smart Blocks and Claytronics projects and it involves researchers from FEMTO-ST, Hong-Kong Polytechnic University and IRISA.
If you want more information, you can contact the two PIs who are:
For the French part: Prof. Julien Bourgeois (Julien.Bourgeois@femto-st.fr)
For the Hong-Kong part: Prof. Jiannong Cao (jiannong.cao@polyu.edu.hk)