To what extent can we call something a “robot”? MIT is ready to find out. The development of new, tiny robots can make significant progress in the medical field.
We don’t know when, but at this point, it seems evident that robots will circulate in our veins in the future; there are already many studies on the use of this type of electronic systems, but few like those announced by MIT. As its creators claim, these could be the smallest robots in the world without sacrificing functionality.
There’s no point letting a robot into your body just for sightseeing. These robots are fully functional, can recognize details of their environment, store data and perform calculations. And all that, as big as a human egg.
The smallest robots in the world
To achieve this, the researchers had to define two parts. First, the electrical circuit, which consists of two-dimensional materials; it is “mounted” on a base of colloids, particles or insoluble molecules with a diameter between 1 nanometer and 10 micrometers.
Because they are so small, it is not possible that they have built-in batteries. They operate in sunlight thanks to an integrated photodiode that covers the low power consumption. And all because they don’t have a locomotive system to help them move to a specific location.
The key is that the resulting robots are so small that they can float indefinitely in liquid or air; it is possible to release them into the environment you want to examine, and they will remain floating and do their work. For the researchers, it is more critical that robots are functional and release them in the right place, rather than sacrificing functionality for movement.
And what kind of jobs they can perform? Mainly diagnostics, detection of environmental changes, especially their creators suggest to use them in pipes (e.g., for analysis of water), arteries and veins. And when they have finished their work, searchlights help to find them to get the data collected; researchers shoot laser beams and search where they are reflected.