Molecular Robotics: A New Paradigm for Artifacts

The rapid progress of molecular nanotechnology has opened the door to molecular robotics, which uses molecules as robot components. In order to promote this new paradigm, the Molecular Robotics Research Group was established in the Systems and Information Division of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE) in 2010. The group consists of researchers from various fields including chemistry, biophysics, DNA nanotechnology, systems science and robotics, challenging this emerging new field. Last year, the group proposed a research project focusing on molecular robotics, and it was recently awarded a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (FY2012-16), one of the large-scale research projects in Japan, by MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, JAPAN). Here, we wish to clarify the fundamental concept and research direction of molecular robotics. For this purpose, we present a comprehensive view of molecular robotics based on the discussions held in the Molecular Robotics Research Group.