Nanotechnology

The advanced automation section has mainly focused on automation technologies using robotics and 'macro'-scale systems, as it describes systems that could be achieved with today's technology. However, even more sophisticated and capable technology using nano-scale devices  (at the atomic and molecular scale) are likely to be feasible in the coming decades, that could ultimately give us a similar level of control over matter that we currently have over information using computers.

This is likely to end up being a mixture of top-down engineering techniques related to current semi-conductor fabrication  and micro-electro-mechanical systems  (MEMS), true bottom-up molecular engineering and self-assembly, and derivatives from biotechnology . This is likely to give us systems of unprecedented precision, capability and small size that will further revolutionise manufacturing, power generation, agriculture and medicine.

See also Diamond Mechanosynthesis.