- It is smaller than a flea, shaped like a crab, and can be remote controlled.
- Its creators believe it could be used in minimally invasive surgeries or to help repair tiny devices.
- We are talking about the smallest robot in the world and its promising future.
It is smaller than a flea, shaped like a crab, and can be remote controlled. Its creators believe it could be used in minimally invasive surgeries or to help repair tiny devices. We are talking of the smallest robot in the world and its promising future.
Engineers have unveiled the world’s smallest remote-controlled walking robot ever created, even smaller than a flea.
The tiny robotic crab can “walk, bend, twist, turn and jump”, according to engineers at Northwestern University in the United States. It could signal the beginning of a new era of microscale robotics.
the little machine does not work with hardware and electronics, but with a shape memory alloy material that transforms when heated.
How does it move?
researchers use a scanned laser beam to rapidly heat the device at different places on its body so that they transform and effectively force the robot to move.
One of the tricks the researchers used was to cover the device with a thin layer of glass that forces that part of the robot structure return to its deformed shape after cooling.
“Because these structures are so small, the rate of cooling is very fast. In fact, reducing the size of these robots allows them to run faster,” explained Professor John Rogers, who led the experimental research.
Part of the achievement was in the manufacturing process, which consists of bond flat precursors on slightly stretched rubberforcing the crabs into a 3D form like a pop-up book.
However, the work remains exploratory and experimental.
The crab robot is much slower than a flea
Despite the comparable range of motion and size, the robot crab is much slower than a flea and has “an average speed of half the length of its body per second”according to Professor Yonggang Huang, who led the theoretical work.
“This is very difficult for ground-based robots to achieve at such small scales,” Professor Huang added.
Northwestern University stated: “Although the research is exploratory at this point, the researchers believe their technology could bring the field closer to realizing micro-sized robots that can perform practical tasks within very small spaces”.
“Microrobots can be imagined as agents to repair or assemble small structures or machines in industry or as surgical assistants to clear clogged arteries, stop internal bleeding or remove cancerous tumors, all in minimally invasive procedures,” Professor Rogers added.
Also millimeter-sized robots resembling caterpillars, crickets and beetles were createdbut Professor Rogers and Huang’s students settled on peekytoe crabs.
“We can build walking robots of almost any size or 3D shape,” said Professor Rogers.
“But the students were inspired and amused by the lateral movements of the little crabs. It was a creative whim.”
The research has been published in the journal Science Robotics.
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