Trade-Offs in Cooperative Goal Seek using Nano-Devices

摘要

Micro and nano-scale devices and systems require not only nano-scale components but also minimal hardware design and control methodologies. When constructing mobile nano-devices, the numbers of motors and sensors should be reduced and the control algorithms should be simplified, whenever possible. However, such reductions may result in sub-optimal performance. We consider here the potential trade-offs between two configurations of nano-devices performing a cooperative goal-seeking task. In the complex configuration, each nano-device has multidirectional sensing and controlled multidirectional locomotion. In the simple configuration, each nano-device can sense only at its present location and can move in a straight line or at random. Using simulation at a high level of abstraction we show that performance using the simpler configuration depends greatly on resampling rate.