SMART MATERIALS

Computer Engineering electronics Engineering Civil Engineering

Over the past century, we have learned how to create specialized materials that meet our specific needs for strength, durability, weight, flexibility, and cost. However, with the advent of smart materials, components may be able to modify themselves, independently, and in each of these dimensions. Smart materials can come in a variety of sizes, shapes, compounds, and functions. But what they all share- indeed what makes them "smart"-is their ability to adapt to changing conditions. Smart materials are the ultimate shape shifters. They can also alter their physical form, monitor their environment, and even diagnose their own internal conditions. They can also do all of this while intelligently interacting with the objects and people around them. More boldly, it is highly likely that once smart materials become truly ubiquitous-once they are seamlessly integrated into a webbed, wireless, and pervasive network -smart materials will challenge our basic assumptions about, and definitions of "living matter." A smart fluid developed in labs at the Michigan Institute of Technology loading..