CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction:
The starting point of nanotechnology to achieve the main goal of
building nanoscale systems is the development of autonomous molecular machine
systems. The presented paper describes the design and simulation of autonomous
multi-robot teams operating at atomic scales with distinct assembly tasks. Teams
must cooperate with each other in order to achieve a productive result in
assembling biomolecules into larger biomolecules. These biomolecules will be
delivered to “organs” (into a set of predefined organ inlets), and such deliveries
must also be coordinated in time.

1.2 Nanomedicine:

Nanomedicine may be defined as the monitoring, repair, construction

and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered
nanodevices and nanostructures.

Basic nanostructured materials, engineered enzymes, and the many

products of biotechnology will be enormously useful in near-term medical
applications. However, the full promise of nanomedicine is unlikely to arrive until
after the development of precisely controlled or programmable medical
nanomachines and nanorobots.

Once nanomachines are available, the ultimate dream of every healer,

medicine man, and physician throughout recorded history will, at last, become a
reality. Programmable and controllable micro scale robots comprised of nanoscale
parts fabricated to nanometer precision will allow medical doctors to execute

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curative and reconstructive procedures in the human body at the cellular and
molecular levels. Nanomedical physicians of the early 21st century will still make
good use of the body's natural healing powers and homeostatic mechanisms,
because, all else equal, those interventions are best that intervene least. But the
ability to direct events in a controlled fashion at the cellular level is the key that
will unlock the indefinite extension of human health and the expansion of human
abilities.

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 CHAPTER 2

PROPOSED DESIGN
A multi-robot molecular machine system could be described as a system
to perform molecular manufacturing at the atomic scale, whose constituent entities
are capable of cooperating collectively.

2.1 Virtual Environment:

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology, which allows a user to interact with
a computer-simulated environment, be it a real, or imagined one. Most current
virtual reality environment are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a
computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations
include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or
headphones. Some advanced, haptic systems now include tactile information,
generally known as force feedback, in medical and gaming applications. Users can
interact with a virtual environment or a virtual artifact (VA) either through the use
of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal
devices such as a wired glove, the Polhemus boom arm, and omni directional
treadmill.
The simulated environment can be similar to the real world, for example,
simulations for pilot or combat training, or it can differ significantly from reality,
as in VR games.

In practice, it is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual

reality experience, due largely to technical limitations on processing power, image
resolution and communication bandwidth. However, those limitations are expected
to eventually be overcome as processor, imaging and data communication
technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time.

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 Virtual Reality was used for the nanorobot design where the use of
macro- and micro robotic concepts is considered a practical approach once the
theoretical and practical assumptions here have focused on its domain of
application. The design should be robust enough to operate in a complex
environment with movement in six-degrees-of-freedom. Nanoscale object
manipulation systems have been applied with the use of computer graphics for
teleportation
The robot design adopted concepts provided from underwater robotics keeping in
mind however the kinetics assumptions that the nanorobot lives in a world of
viscosity, where friction, adhesion, and viscous forces are paramount and
gravitational forces are of little or no importance

1.a) nanorobot sensing obstacles

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(1.b) nanorobot avoiding obstacles

(1.c) nanorobot finding path

Figure 1: Collision detection.

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2.2 Collision detection:
The obstacles will be located in unknown positions (figure 1). The
delivery positions that represent organ inlets requiring proteins (Proteins are large
organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined
together between the carboxyl atom of one amino acid and the amine nitrogen of
another) to be injected are located in a well-known position for the nanorobot
teams if these organ inlets are (or are not) scheduled for injection at time t, they
will change their colors, indicating the opening or closing of the team A (blue
nanorobots) and B’s (yellow nanorobots) delivery orifice, which will indicate for
the agents if they could perform their delivery in the correct order (figure 2).

The trajectories and positions of each molecule are generated randomly

and each molecule also has probabilistic motion acceleration. The nanorobot
navigation uses plane surfaces (three fins total) and bi-directional propellers,
which are comprised of two simultaneously counter-rotating screw drives for the
propulsion.

Considering the liquid environment, a sonar approach is the most

appropriate choice of sensor device for nanorobots in nanomedicine; thereby for
navigational purposes the blue cones shown in figure 3 represent regions that the
robot’s sonar can “hear”. Scientific visualization techniques permit rapid and
precise geometric analysis for a sonar classification system the nanorobot sensors
report collisions and identify when an encountered object is an obstacle to be
avoided or a molecule to be caught. While some molecules are being captured
(figure 3), other molecules will be assembled internally by the robot arm.

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Figure 2: Nanorobot molecule delivery to the organ inlet - represented by the
white cylinder

Figure 3: Molecular identification by collisions contact.

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 CHAPTER 3

COOPERATIVE MULTI ROBOT TEAMS

The approach for the nanomedicine problem considered here could be

described as two multi-robot teams which must cooperate interactively to feed a
set of organ inlets in the virtual environment under study. Research on multi-robot
teams working cooperatively to achieve a single global task suggests that we
should consider emulating the methods of the social insects, because nature has
already shown us how to build decentralized and distributed systems that are
autonomous and capable of accomplishing tasks through the interaction of agents
with the same structures and pre-programmed actions and goals

Professor Kube has pointed out that a careful decomposition of the main
problem task into subtasks with action based on local sensor-based perception
could generate multi-robot coherent behaviors without explicit communication.

We have decomposed the total set of organ inlets, assigning for each pair
of nanorobots a specified number of organ inlets to be attended by the nanorobots
at each time-step of the simulation. Each pair is comprised of nanorobots from
team A and B. The organ inlets selected to be fed at time t have to be fed first by
the agent A and so forth. Both agents must take care to avoid applying an overdose
or deficiency of the injected substances. The multi-robot team behavior interaction
rule is described at table 1, with Ω denoting if the robot r belongs to team A or B,

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where e,g and h represent the kind of molecule to be assembled by each multi-
robot team; therefore:

The min denotes the minimum defined to be captured by each nanorobot

at time step t. The decision control model uses adaptive evolutionary
characteristics, thus each autonomous decision is represented as a chromosome
describing the agent decision on how, when, and what organ inlets to attend at
time t. Next is described the multi-objective model for the dynamic decision
problem.

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Where

r, t, i: subscript denoting: robot, time, organ inlet.

max , min: maximum and minimum relative capacity;

n: size of time in the simulated scenery.

m: total of organ inlets to be fed.

L: robot load capacity.

yt : surplus/deficit to the desired assembled mean.

xit : substance amount injected in the organ inlet i.

Qt : total assembled molecule by r in t.

wi t : chemical state of the organ inlet i at time t.

z it : substance consumption by organ inlet i.

d: desired assembled substances rate.

γ : Parameter to look ahead nutritional levels.

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it : Boolean variable.

W: determines if r belongs to team A or B.

γ : Maximum to be injected in organ inlet i;

represents our fitness function, where the robots maximize the protein
levels for the selected organ inlets; the variable y induces the robot to catch a
number of molecules as closely as possible to the desired delivery mean. The
proposed nanorobot model here includes no kind of nanorobot self-replicating
behavior. Instead, it uses an evolutionary approach strictly for the combinatorial
analyses, allowing the nanorobots to react cooperatively in an uncertain
environment with a well-defined pre-programmed set of action

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 CHAPTER 4

NEURAL MOTION

A connectionist model using Artificial Neural Networks was chosen for

the motion control and shortest-path problem solution, beginning with a dynamic
combinatorial problem for each time-step simulation

4.1 Neurobiological Background:

Neural Doctrine
The nervous system of living organisms is a structure consisting of many
elements working in parallel and in connection with one another

Figure 4: The Structure of Neuron

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 The neuron is a many-inputs / one-output unit. The output can be excited
or not excited, just two possible choices (like a flip-flop). The signals from other
neurons are summed together and compared against a threshold to determine if the
neuron shall excite ("fire"). The input signals are subject to attenuation in the
synapses, which are junction parts of the neuron.

The next important step was to find that the synapse resistance to the
incoming signal could be changed during a "learning" process

4.2 Hebb's Learning Rule:

If an input of a neuron is repeatedly and persistently causing the neuron
to fire, a metabolic change happens in the synapse of that particular input to reduce
its resistance

This discovery became a basis for the concept of associative memory

Artificial Neuron

Figure 5: First mathematical representation of neuron

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 The Artificial Neuron is actually quite simple. All signals can be 1 or -1
(the "binary" case, often called classic spin for its similarity with the problem of
disordered magnetic systems). The neuron calculates a weighted sum of inputs and
compares it to a threshold. If the sum is higher than the threshold, the output is set
to 1, otherwise to -1.

4.3 Artificial Neural Networks (ANN):

The power of neuron comes from its collective behavior in a network
where all neurons are interconnected. The network starts evolving: neurons
continuously evaluate their output by looking at their inputs, calculating the
weighted sum and comparing to a threshold to decide if they should fire. This is
highly complex parallel process whose features cannot be reduced to phenomena
taking place with individual neurons.

One observation is that the evolving of ANN causes it to eventually

reach a state where all neurons continue working but no further changes in their
state happen. A network may have more than one stable states, and it is obviously
determined (somehow) by the choice of synaptic weights and thresholds for the
neurons.

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4.4 Perceptron:
Feed-forward Configuration
Another step in understanding of ANN dynamics was made with
introduction and analysis of a perceptron a simple neural network consisting of
input layer, output layer, and possibly one or more intermediate layers of neurons.

Figure 6: Perceptron

Once the input layer neurons are clamped to their values, the evolving
starts: layer-by-layer, the neurons determine their output. This ANN configuration
is often called feed-forward because of this feature

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4.5 Feed forward algorithm

We have implemented a feed forward or acyclic network due to its

suitability for probabilistic calculations.

The features of the algorithm for the implemented neural network are
described in above Table and could be represented by equation below:

Where X represents a vector, consisting of the two-valued random

variables X1, X2… Xn, defining a topology composed of N stochastic neurons.
With n representing the range of hidden layers, which leads the network to be
optimized at the time-step t, it represents each destiny to be achieved for

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throughout the simulation. The units in the network are organized into a two-
dimensional matrix Amn, with n rows by m columns, where n and m are the costs
matrix of destinations to be performed by each evolutionary agent, which tries to
complete its set of tasks successfully as fast as possible. Let the output of the unit
in row i and column j be vij = 1, where ij. This means that the referred destination
is visited at the ith stop, with vij = 0 otherwise
Therefore, a solution cost for each agent routing could be expressed by
equation

Once having obtained both routes (route on and route off), which are
comprised respectively of the organ inlets to be supplied and the organ inlet whose
nutritional level is to be verified, then the nanorobot performs the complete
trajectory, first executing the whole delivery route, and afterwards beginning the
verification route. We joint both trajectories, taking from the best one connection
with the last point from the delivery route. That is, the verification route could be
set in forward or backward sequence, taking the nearest position between the last
organ inlet in the delivery route and the first or last organ inlet in the verification
route, depending on which gets the shorter distance. Figure below shows an
illustrative representation of the trajectories process that receives from the neural
motion control module to improve their performance. For the case in figure
7(below) we have a verification route in backward sequence.

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Figure 7: Complete trajectory comprised by delivery and verification tour

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 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION
5.1 Conclusion:
The present work (1) considers the importance of nanosystems design in
nanomedicine using multi-robot teams exhibiting cooperative autonomous
behavior, and (2) presents an advanced three-dimensional graphic environment
using neural motion and physically based simulation applied to assembly tasks. A
coherent team behavior with a fast adaptive reaction was suitably achieved with
the parameter organs’ nutritional level starting at 65%. It could be demonstrated
(figure 8) that the implemented model has generated satisfactory performances for
maintaining the organs’ nutritional levels, where just a few levels were a bit higher
or lower and most values ranged around 65%, clearly indicating that there were no
overdoses or deficiencies of the nutritional levels, as the most ideal state was
considered to be a level ranging between 50% and 70%. In the simulation we
considered a level of 90% as near to an overdose and 10% as a deficiency state.

Figure 8: Multi-robot cooperative reaction.

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5.2 Future scope:
Nanomedicine will eliminate virtually all common diseases of the 20th
century, virtually all medical pain and suffering, and allow the extension of human
capabilities most especially our mental abilities.
The most important long-term benefit to human society as a whole could
be the dawning of a new era of peace. We could hope that people who are
independently well fed, well-clothed, well-housed, smart, well educated, healthy
and happy will have little motivation to make war. Human beings who have a
reasonable prospect of living many "normal" lifetimes will learn patience from
experience, and will be extremely unlikely to risk those "many lifetimes" for any
but the most compelling of reasons.

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REFERENCES:

1. Adriano Cavalcanti, Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Nanosystem Design with

Dynamic Colision Detection for Autonomous Nanorobot Motion Control
using Neural Networks” Darmstadt University of Technology, Computer
Science Department Darmstadt, Germany, Zyvex
Corporation,Richardson,USA
2. Cavalcanti, “Nanorobotics Control Design for Nanomedicine”, PhD
Thesis, Computer Science Department, Darmstadt University of
Technology, Darmstadt, Germany, 2003.
3. C. R. Kube, “Collective Robotics: from Local Perception to Global
Action”, PhD thesis, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, 1997.
WEB:
4. http://ulcar.uml.edu/~iag/CS/Intro-to-ANN.html

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