Engineered matter with embodied programmability and mechano-intelligence

In recent years, the concept of reconfigurable matter engineered based on nature-inspired modular architectures has been explored to create advanced structures. The modules are designed to be reconfigurable, so to produce synergistic and intriguing dynamic functionalities, such as programmable phononic bandgap and nontraditional wave steering. More recently, with the rapid advances in high-performance intelligent systems, we are witnessing a prominent demand for the next generation of mechanical matter to have much more built-in intelligence and autonomy. An emerging direction is to pioneer the structures’ high dimensionality and nonlinearity for mechano-intelligence via physical computing. That is, we aim to concurrently embody computing power and functional intelligence, such as perception, learning, memorizing, decision-making and execution, directly in the mechanical domain, advancing from conventional systems that solely rely on add-on digital computer to achieve intelligence. This presentation will highlight some of these advancements in harnessing engineered matter for structural dynamics tailoring, from adaptive wave controls to self-learning-self-tuning intelligence.