Roadmap for Animate Matter
Abstract
Humanity has long sought inspiration from nature to innovate materials and devices. As science advances, nature-inspired materials are becoming part of our lives. Animate materials, characterized by their activity, adaptability, and autonomy, emulate properties of living systems. While only biological materials fully embody these principles, artificial versions are advancing rapidly, promising transformative impacts across various sectors. This roadmap presents authoritative perspectives on animate materials across different disciplines and scales, highlighting their interdisciplinary nature and potential applications in diverse fields including nanotechnology, robotics and the built environment. It underscores the need for concerted efforts to address shared challenges such as complexity management, scalability, evolvability, interdisciplinary collaboration, and ethical and environmental considerations. The framework defined by classifying materials based on their level of animacy can guide this emerging field encouraging cooperation and responsible development. By unravelling the mysteries of living matter and leveraging its principles, we can design materials and systems that will transform our world in a more sustainable manner.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2407.10623,
title = {Roadmap for Animate Matter},
author = {Giorgio Volpe and Nuno A. M. Araújo and Maria Guix and Mark Miodownik and Nicolas Martin and Laura Alvarez and Juliane Simmchen and Roberto Di Leonardo and Nicola Pellicciotta and Quentin Martinet and Jérémie Palacci and Wai Kit Ng and Dhruv Saxena and Riccardo Sapienza and Sara Nadine and João F. Mano and Reza Mahdavi and Caroline Beck Adiels and Joe Forth and Christian Santangelo and Stefano Palagi and Ji Min Seok and Victoria A. Webster-Wood and Shuhong Wang and Lining Yao and Amirreza Aghakhani and Thomas Barois and Hamid Kellay and Corentin Coulais and Martin van Hecke and Christopher J. Pierce and Tianyu Wang and Baxi Chong and Daniel I. Goldman and Andreagiovanni Reina and Vito Trianni and Giovanni Volpe and Richard Beckett and Sean P. Nair and Rachel Armstrong},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.10623},
year = {2025}
}