How reverse reactions influence the yield of self-assembly robots

The decay in structure size of manufacturing products has yielded new demands on spontaneous composition methods. The key for the realization of small-sized robots lies in how to achieve the efficient assembly sequence in a bottom-up manner, where most of the parts have only limited (or no) computational (i.e. deliberative) abilities. In this paper, based on a novel self-assembly platform consisting of self-propulsive centimetre-sized modules capable of aggregation on the surface of water, we study the effect of stochasticity and morphology (shape) on the yield of targeted formations in self-assembly processes. Specifically, we focus on a unique phenomenon: that a number of modules instantly compose a target product without forming intermediate subassemblies, some of which constitute undesired geometrical formations (termed one-shot aggregation). Together with a focus on the role that the morphology of the modules plays, we validate the effect of one-shot aggregation with a kinetic rate mathematical model. Moreover, we examined the degree of parallelism of the assembly process, which is an essential factor in self-assembly, but is not systematically taken into account by existing frameworks.

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