Miscellaneous


Could YOU swallow a robot?

Jun 16, 2022

Have you ever wondered if that over-the-counter pill you took an hour ago is helping to relieve your headache?

With NSF's support, a team of Stanford University mechanical engineers has found a way to target drug delivery…to better attack that headache.

Meet the millirobots. These finger-sized, wireless, origami inspired, amphibious robots could become medicines future lifesaver. They can roll, spin, and swim into narrow spaces with a mission to deliver and dispense a high-concentration drug exactly where the body needs it. Especially helpful when treating more complicated medical conditions like cardiovascular disease or cancer.

Millirobots go beyond the basic origami foldability to maneuver by utilizing accordion fold action to squeeze the medicine out.

Besides dispensing medicine more effectively, they could also carry instruments or cameras into the body, changing how doctors examine patients. The team is working on using ultrasound imaging to track where the robots go, eliminating the need to cut open organs.

While more testing is needed, the team continues combining novel smart materials and structures into unique designs to form new biomedical devices that could one day maximize health outcomes while minimizing the need for invasive procedures.
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Tiny, caterpillar-like soft robot grabs, rolls and degrades

Sep 14, 2022

When you hear the term “robot,” you might think of complicated machinery working in factories or roving on other planets. But “millirobots” might change that. They’re robots about as wide as a finger that someday could deliver drugs or perform minimally invasive surgery. Researchers reporting in ACS Applied Polymer Materials have developed a soft, biodegradable, magnetic millirobot inspired by the walking and grabbing capabilities of insects.

“Soft Tunable Gelatin Robot with Insect-like Claw for Grasping, Transportation, and Delivery” - Wanfeng Shang, Ph.D., and Yajing Shen, Ph.D. (corresponding authors)
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Micro robots with brains

Mar 6, 2023

Micro Robots are a revolutionary new technology that could change how we interact with the world around us. For the first time, a collaborative research team of electrical and computer engineers , with support from NSF, has installed electronic brains on solar-powered microbots the size of a human hair. One of the biggest challenges is their small size-requiring external control, such as a computer or smartphone, limiting their range and making the bots difficult to manipulate remotely until now.
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Passive wing deployment and retraction in beetles and flapping microrobots

Aug 9, 2024

Birds, bats and many insects can tuck their wings against their bodies when at rest and deploy them to power flight. Whereas birds and bats use well-developed pectoral and wing muscles, how insects control their wing deployment and retraction remains unclear because this varies among insect species. Beetles (Coleoptera) display one of the most complex mechanisms. In rhinoceros beetles, Allomyrina dichotoma, wing deployment is initiated by complete release of the elytra and partial release of the hindwings at their bases. Subsequently, the beetle starts flapping, elevates the hindwing bases and unfolds the hindwing tips in an origami-like fashion. Although the origami-like fold has been extensively explored, limited attention has been given to the hindwing base movements, which are believed to be driven by the thoracic muscles. Here we demonstrate that rhinoceros beetles can effortlessly deploy their hindwings without necessitating muscular activity. We show that opening the elytra triggers a spring-like partial release of the hindwings from the body, allowing the clearance needed for the subsequent flapping motion that brings the hindwings into the flight position. After flight, the beetle can use the elytra to push the hindwings back into the resting position, further strengthening the hypothesis of passive deployment. We validated the hypothesis using a flapping microrobot that passively deployed its wings for stable, controlled flight and retracted them neatly upon landing, demonstrating a simple, yet effective, approach to the design of insect-like flying micromachines.Free to read link: https://rdcu.be/dPAyoCite this article:Phan, HV., Park, H.C. & Floreano, D. Passive wing deployment and retraction in beetles and flapping microrobots. Nature (2024). nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07755-9
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Picotaur! The unrivaled micro robot

Aug 12, 2024

Researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have created the first legged robot of its size to run, turn, push loads and climb miniature stairs.
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Active Droplets with a Magnetic Upgrade

Nov 3, 2025

In two papers published in Matter and Advanced Science, a team of scientists from the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, developed control strategies for influencing the motion of self-propelling oil droplets. These oil droplets mimic single-celled microorganisms and can autonomously solve a complex maze by following chemical gradients. However, it is very challenging to integrate external perturbation and use these droplets in robotics. To address these challenges, the team developed magnetic droplets that still possess life-like properties and can be controlled by external magnetic fields. In their work, the researchers showed that they are able to guide the droplet's motion and use them in microrobotic applications such as cargo transportation.
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