Micrometer-scale robot created
Integrates power delivery, locomotion and communication into space that's the width of a human hair
The world's smallest untethered, controllable robot has been unveiled at half the length of the period at the end of this sentence .
"It's tens of times smaller in length, and thousands of times smaller in mass than previous untethered microrobots that are controllable," says Bruce Donald of Dartmouth College. "When we say 'controllable,' it means it's like a car; you can steer it anywhere on a flat surface, and drive it wherever you want to go. It doesn't drive on wheels, but crawls like a silicon inchworm, making tens of thousands of 10-nanometer steps every second. It turns by putting a silicon 'foot' out and pivoting like a motorcyclist skidding around a tight turn."
Researchers led by Donald and Edward J. Foley Jr. have reported their creation in a paper that will be presented at the 12th International Symposium of Robotics Research in October in San Francisco. A longer, more detailed paper will also appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems.
Future applications for micro-electromechanical systems such as this include inspecting and repairing integrated circuits and manipulating cells or tissues.
A news release describes the study:
[The paper] describes a machine that measures 60 micrometers by 250 micrometers (one micrometer is one thousandth of a millimeter). It integrates power delivery, locomotion, communication, and a controllable steering system—the combination of which has never been achieved before in a machine this small. Donald explains that this discovery ushers in a new generation of even tinier microrobots...
The prototype is steerable and untethered, meaning that it can move freely on a surface without the wires or rails that constrained the motion of previously developed microrobots. Donald explains that this is the smallest robot that transduces force, is untethered, and is engaged in its own locomotion. The robot contains two independent microactuators, one for forward motion and one for turning. It's not pre-programmed to move; it is teleoperated, powered by the grid of electrodes it walks on. The charge in the electrodes not only provides power, it also supplies the robot's instructions that allow it to move freely over the electrodes, unattached to them.
The research was funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Domestic Preparedness.
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