Le Trois
Special Issue #7April 2024
Pushing physical boundaries with Phigi
The Montbéliard start-up is working on a breakthrough technology. The company is developing a solution based on a programmable matter linked to digital tools. Thousands of micro-robots can be assembled and disassembled indefinitely.
With Phigi, you inevitably enter another dimension: that of science fiction, which doesn't seem so far away. It's a world that doesn't displease its director, Rémy Tribhout, who likes to invoke the comic strip Les Nouveaux Héros to explain his interest in these robots that assemble themselves. Phigi pushes back the boundaries between the real world and the digital world. With this new technology, these two realities mix. In dialog. It's a real deep-tech project, a disruptive innovation. This programmable matter project pushes back the boundaries of what's possible.
The technology is cutting-edge, but the idea is relatively simple. Imagine modeling clay that can be shaped by a computer, moving from one object to another with the click of a finger. This is the Phigi project. Thousands of 2mm micro-robots, which look like little marbles, linked together in a box, form a live assembly controlled by a computer. Change a dimension on the digital plan and the model follows. Move these micro-robots on the physical model, and the computer plan updates. "It's an entanglement and synchronization between the physical model and the digital model," explains Rémy Tribhout, head of Phigi, currently based at Numerica in Montbéliard. In fact, the model can be in one part of the world and the computer in another. In fact, the model can be in one part of the world and the computer in another, or even several models in different parts of the world, so that several people can communicate live without being in the same room. Impressive.
The world's smallest computer
In design, there was the drawing, then the physical model. Then there was the digital 3D model, followed by additive printing. "What we're proposing is the next stage, where there will be no difference between the physical model and the digital model," promises Rémy Tribhout, an engineering graduate from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (Insa) in Toulouse. At the end of his studies, he took part in a competition, which he won. His team was working on programmable matter. But he had left the project because he wanted to work for Thales in Panama to gain experience. When he returned, he was determined to see the idea through.
After the COVID-19 lockdown, he met by chance a researcher from his school who was working on modular robotics. He was in contact with a researcher from Montbéliard, Julien Bourgeois, a member of Femto-ST and a university professor of computer science. He's a world reference. "He is the most advanced person in the academic field of modular robotics and programmable matter", says Rémy Tribhout. The contact was quickly established.
"There will be no distinction between physical and digital models in the future.
The feeling takes hold. Rémy Tribhout, originally from Paris but now living in Toulouse, came to Montbéliard. He became a research engineer at Femto-ST and was in charge of the company's project to develop the academic research carried out by Julien Bourgeois over the last fifteen years. He founded Phigi in January 2021. At the age of 30, this is his first company. The company's name, a play on the Greek letter phi, is the result of the contraction between "physical" and "digital" that technology brings together. The miniature computer, the world's smallest, built into each micro-robot, was developed by American David Blaauw at the University of Michigan.
He is one of the world's leading experts in low-power microsystems and helped found the company. Today, Phigi is still involved with Femto-ST. The start-up is still in its infancy, but already has six employees. The company should be registered in the next few months.
The new technology is not just for tomorrow. A micro-robot demonstrator is planned for the end of 2025. By 2028, these micro-robots will be able to drive each other. Initially, the message will only be sent to these micro-robots to get them moving. Three versions of the project are planned, the last of which will include two-way interaction. The company is also developing electrostatic actuators to make the micro-robots move with each other. The advantage is that the technology doesn't require much energy to connect and disconnect the micro-robots.
"By 2028, these micro-robots should be able to roll on each other."
On the application side, industrial design and prototyping are serious possibilities. This is where 3D printing began. We could also project ourselves into space," says Rémy Tribhout, "with the creation of housing modules that could be assembled or reassembled according to the needs of astronauts. And why not consider applications in the art world? Customers would buy a box containing the micro-robots and files of artworks. They could then install works of their choice in their homes, choosing a Rodin sculpture on Monday and a reproduction of the Venus de Milo on Tuesday. The possibilities are endless.
Whatever the success of this project, all the research and technological advances will benefit other sectors," assures Rémy Tribhout. And to quote Oscar Wilde. "Always aim for the moon, because even if you fail, you'll land in the stars.
Thibault Quartier
