A team of scientists has designed new microscopic robots around the size of a human hair. According to the study published in Nature journal, the four-leg robots could be injected into the body through needles.
"These are too small to see with the naked eye, and have four legs that are powered by on-board solar cells," Marc Miskin of Cornell University, told AFP.
"The four legs move when a laser light hits the solar cells, which triggers the robot to walk," he explained. The robot is composed of light cells made from silicon, and is equipped with four electrochemical actuators.
The robots are 0.1 millimeters wide, solid, and can survive highly acidic environments and temperature variations of more than 70 degrees Celsius. The study said researchers have produced over one million of these robots which can be "injected into the body in order to explore biological environments," or for applications in materials science.
"Fifty years of shrinking down electronics has led to some remarkably tiny technologies," said Miskin.
"You can build sensors, computers, memory, all in very small spaces. But, if you want a robot, you need actuators, parts that move," with no heavy or bulky power sources, he explained.
These four-leg microscopic robots still need a lot of work, as they are slow and cannot be controlled.
But, the researchers said the use of microscopic electronics could help produce fully autonomous robots in the future.
