Design levels

Design levels for (advanced) APM systems provide a general blueprint for relevant software package architecture.
They are somewhat similar to the assembly levels which provide a general blueprint for a concrete physical layout.

Back: technology level III

Tooltip level design

[Tooltip cycle; DC10c;...] tooltip chemistry

• NanoHive@Home’s Published Results: Analysis Of Diamondoid Mechanosynthesis Tooltip Pathologies Generated Via A Distributed Computing Approach
• DC10c: Design and Analysis of a Molecular Tool for Carbon Transfer in Mechanosynthesis

tip based nanofabrication

Software

Simple force field approximations are suitable for all but the core mechanosynthesis processes of advanced APM. For these more accurate simulations (Ab initio quantum chemistry methods) are necessary Gaussian can be used to analyze specific problems of tooltip chemistry

Atomistic mechanic level design

This is the art of designing diamondoid molecular elements DMEs.
[Todo: add design tips]

Software

Engineering of DMEs is a completely new field. The software tool Nanoengineer-1 [1] [2] was developed to make this area more accessible. It's development is currently idle (2014). It was extended to support more near term structural DNA nanotechnology. There is also the cadnano blender plugin for structural DNA nanotechnology.

Additional information:
Nanosystems 14.6.3. Automated generation of synthesis and assembly procedures - a. Retrosynthetic analysis of chemical syntheses.

Lower bulk limit design

An example for a design at the lower bulk limit (a basic gas tight bellow)

Bigger structures where atomic detail may matter less or which are simply not simulatable yet because of limited computation power may be designd with conventional methods of solid modelling.

A vew issues have to be thought about though:

• Since we operate on the lowermost size level there needs to be set a minimum wall thickness that must not be deceeded
• surfaces should be kept parallel to the main crystallographic faces such that they will not create random steps when auto-filled with virtual atoms.

[todo add links to demo collection]

More information can be found in Nanosystems section 9.3.2 and 9.3.3 (bounded continuum)

Software

Programmatical CAD Software Tools for volumetric shape description are needed: (Makro and Meso)

• OpenSCAD - limited language capability + quick preview
• ImplicitCAD - no quick preview yet - native language interface could be better + high language capability
• miniSageCAD - very slow + nice interface + educative experiment
• Proposal: creation of an an Solid Body Construction Tool SoBoCoTo that combines the best aspects of the above and extended by the capability of intelligent atomic tesselation. (Binding to DME design tools.)

Purely graphical CAD tools seem less suitable (see WYSIWYG vs WYSIWYAF).

Nanosystems 14.6.4. Shape description languages and part arrays

System level design

Main topics are:

• organisation of diamondoid metamaterials
• nanofactory system design

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Diamondoid metamaterials (and more heterogenous microcomponent subsystems) are of high importance since they form the basis for all advanced AP products an applications.
Examples for what metameterials we might want to design are:

• elasticity emulation
• infinitesimal gear bearings
• legged block mobility for e.g. live self repair
• DME recycling
• ...

It is desirable to organize these metamaterials in microcomponents which are designed such that they allow adjustable inter-mixture of standalone subsystems. Examples for intermixture of sub-systems:

• infinitesimal bearings + chemomechanical converters + energy storage cells = chemical interfacial drive
  
• infinitesimal bearings + electromechanical converters + electric distribution system = electrical interfacial drive (non-mechanical)
  
• interfacial drive + self repairing systems + hirachical heterogenous comutation systems = very advanced APM product

Note that this functional composition has it's limits. Some especially fancy functions might exclude a whole set of others.

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In AP manufacturing systems system level design determines the mapping of the abstract assembly levels into a concrete three dimensional layout of a nanofactory.
Today (2013) it is rather diffecult to do work on this area. Lots of questions need to be answerded.

(yet speculative) advanced metamaterials.

The main topics can each be further subdevided into:

• three dimensional placement of huge amounts of standard components
• topological interconnections
• temporal organisation in a dynamic setting
• IO logistics of all the media (materials,information,engergy,...) to handle
• emulation of physical (especially mechanical) properties

A big problem at this design level is that the sizes of the diverse functional components and the locations of their connection points are yet unknown.

Helpful may be a software capable of crystallographic space subdivision (space groups) and piecewise connection of different crystal structures with compatible 2D cross-sections (plane groups). Scale invariant symmetries (fractal symmetries) are also of high relevance especially in redundancy design that is e.g. needed in artificial motor-muscles design.

Software

• DME system simulation
• 3D Layout generation from schematics (NaSy 14.6.5. Compilers - b. Design compilers -- detailed info)
• Production control .. sub product part paths .. (Nanosystems 14.6.5. Compilers - a. Assembly compilers)

• Auto Assembly Code Generation - CNC path generation - slicing - gcode - retro-synthetic analysis

[Todo: improve section]

External references

• more information: Nanosystems 14.6. Design and complexity