Intermolecular Forces in a Physical Molecular Visualization System: A Human-Computer Interaction Application

Abstract

This paper extends the concept of self-reconfigurable physical programming to incorporate attraction and repulsion forces between physical objects controlled by a software, Unity 3D engine. Those forces are further explained as force curves that justify the behavior of molecules under specific circumstances. A better programming methodology for physical structures is represented in this paper for demonstrating an interactive 3D physical simulation of the attraction and repulsion forces. The bottom-up programming of self-reconfigurable mid-air flying drones has proved to be more efficient in facilitating code modifications, maintenance, and scalability. The implementation evaluation covered drones’ response latency and accuracy as a drones’ deviation ratio from the correct path. The evaluation results show marginal latency measures and considerably high accuracy in the drones’ movements. This opens the door for many future works on this subject to improve its scalability and adaptability in similar self-reconfigurable physical structures programming projects.