Bistable mechanical computing: From information storage to integrated logical operations

Mechanical computing achieves information processing through mechanical deformation and physical signal transmission, as an alternative method to compensate for the limitations of conventional electronic devices in extreme environments has received increasing attention. However, existing mechanical computing systems suffer from limited scalability, insufficient reconfigurability, and the lack of non-volatile information storage function as well as signal transmission between logic operation units. To address these issues, this paper proposes a modular mechanical logic unit based on bistable beams, constructing a mechanical information processing system with non-volatile data storage and erasure capabilities. By assembling these modular units, we build a reprogrammable mechanical computing system that can realize basic logic gates, including NOT, AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR and XNOR, as well as arithmetic operations such as half adder and full adder. Notably, the signal transmission about mechanical data storage and information encoding also can achieve simultaneously. The results show that our proposed mechanical computing system can realize system-level signal transmission without manual intervention by means of electrical actuation. This study provides a new feasible method for the application of mechanical computing in scenarios such as soft robotics, intelligent metamaterials and information processing in extreme environments.