Molding a Shape-Memory Polymer with Programmable Matter

The design phase of a car development is a long and tedious process requiring a lot of trials and errors. In this paper, we introduce a new concept aiming at making this process easier and more interactive. Our solution mixes self-reconfigurable autonomous robots forming programmable matter and a shape-memory polymer surface that produces an interactive model of the desired object. We propose a global algorithm to manage the interactions with the users and the self-reconfiguration of programmable matter to mold the polymer surface. We detail the technical aspects used to define the new shape of the programmable matter to better approach a goal surface described by a Non-Uniform Rational Basis Splines (NURBS) using a dichotomy algorithm.