SOCIAL DNA NANOROBOTS

Abstract

DNA nanorobots are molecular-scale synthetic devices composed primarily of DNA, that can execute a variety of operations. In the last decades, there have been considerable advances in DNA nanorobots, which have been demonstrated to perform autonomous walking, maze traversal, and cargo delivery activities. A major challenge in the design of these DNA nanorobots is to increase the diversity of the types of activities they can perform, in spite of practical limitations on the complexity of each individual DNA-nanobot. This project takes inspiration from insects such as ants and honeybees, which perform a wide variety of relatively complex organized behaviors with very limited individual brains. Mobile DNA nanorobots (which we also term DNA walkers) are a class of DNA nanorobots which can move over a nanotrack composed of DNA stepping stones. The nanotrack may be 1D or 2D and may be either self-assembled DNA nanostructure or a set of DNA strands affixed to a surface. Autonomous mobile DNA nanorobots (also termed autonomous DNA walkers) are mobile DNA nanorobots that locomote autonomously. Here we propose social DNA nanorobots, which are autonomous mobile DNA nanorobots that execute a series of pair-wise interactions between pairs of DNA nanorobots that determine an over-all desired outcome behavior for the group of nanorobots. We present various designs for social DNA nanorobots that provide diverse behaviors including, Walking, Self-avoiding Walking, Flocking, Guarding, Attacking, Voting by Assassination, and Foraging.