What comes to mind when you hear the word "robot"? the Boston Dynamics; or flexible, tiny Appliances that can swim in bodily fluids? You probably have Boston Dynamics coming your way, but the latest will be the robot that could one day deliver life-saving drugs to the hardest-to-reach parts of your body.
In one study which appeared in science magazine Science Advances, by a team of scientists from EPFL and ETH Zurich describes the design of robots from bacteria that are biocompatible, and able to modify their shape as needed.
So they can pass through very narrow blood vessels without any problems in the speed. Selman Sakar, lead author of the study, said he and his colleagues followed a variation of origami – kirigami – to design the new robot.
"Our robots have a special composition and structure that allow them to adapt to the characteristics of the moving fluid," says Sakar.
"For example, if they experience a change in viscosity or osmotic concentration, they change their shape to maintain their speed and flexibility without losing control of their direction."
The secret in the construction is called nanogomposite hydrogel, a body filled with nanomaterial material, hydrated, and tightly bonded to a polymer that is relatively elastic. Instead of tiny tiny sensors, batteries and actuators inside the tiny robots, the researchers added nanocomposites with magnetic nanoparticles that respond to changes in the surrounding electric fields. Thus the robots can be "programmed" and deformed with commands or left to navigate the cavities autonomously with the flow of body fluid.
The main advantage of robots? The low pricing of materials. Sakar and colleague Bradley Nelson say they can be built at a "reasonable" cost.
In the future, the team plans to improve the performance of robots in navigation in complex liquids. Once they do, they may start prescribing doses of nanosynthetic hydrogel.
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