Scientists develope microrobots that can enter human veins 'someday'

In a major breakthrough marking a bridge between humans and robotics, scientists have developed first cell-sized microrobots, too small to be seen with the naked eye, and have the potential of entering human veins someday. Researchers from Cornell and Penn University come together to develop these microrobots on the scale of biological cells with semiconductor processing and can be controlled with basic electronic signals. 

As per the article published by Penn engineering, these microrobots are roughly the size of a paramecium, that is, about 5 microns thick, 40 microns wide and ranging from 40 to 70 microns in length. Scientists believe that their innovation can provide a template for building an even more complex version, which can be produced in bulk and “may someday travel through the human body”. 

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Marc Miskin, the assistant professor in Penn Engineering’s Department of Electrical and System Engineering and also the co-author of the study began working on the robots under Itai Cohen, professor of physics, and Paul McEuen, the John A Newman Professor of Physical Science at Cornell University. The study led by all three researchers have been published in a renowned journal, Nature titled, ‘Electronically integrated, mass-manufactured, microscopic robots’.

One of the researchers’ robot next to a paramecium. Source: Penn University

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What techniques did the researchers use?

As McEuen elaborated, the researchers had the challenge of developing a small semiconductor technology and then combine them with electronics. For this, they used lithography techniques, that is similar to those employed in the making of computer chips including the etching of the robots’ brains and torso onto silicon. The researchers control these tiny robots by flashing laser pulses at different photovoltaics that are designated to activate a separate set of legs. 

It is by toggling the laser back and forth, the microrobot is able to walk. Cohen has also explained these structures as just a first shot across the bow of electronic integration by tiny robots as they are not very fast.

“While these robots are primitive in their function — they’re not very fast, they don’t have a lot of computational capability — every single one of the innovations that we made in creating them blows open the door to making these things smart, fast and mass-producible,” Cohen said. “This is really just the first shot across the bow that, hey, we can do electronic integration on a tiny robot.”

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