[ExI] An Army of Microscopic Robots Is Ready to Patrol Your Body

[Adrian Tymes]

These robots are apparently on the tens of micrometers (microns) - that is,
thousands of nanometers - across.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2020 at 2:06 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> "If I were to picture futuristic bots that could revolutionize both
> microrobotics and medicine, a Pop-Tart with four squiggly legs would not be
> on top of my list.
>
> I was so wrong.
>
> Last week, Drs. Marc Miskin*, Itai Cohen, and Paul McEuen at Cornell
> University spearheaded a collaboration
> <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2626-9> that tackled one of
> the most pressing problems in microrobotics—getting those robots to move in
> a controllable manner. They graced us with an army of Pop-Tart-shaped
> microbots with seriously tricked-out actuators, or motors that allow a
> robot to move. In this case, the actuators make up the robot’s legs.
>
> Each smaller than the width of a human hair, the bots have a blocky body
> equipped with solar cells and two pairs of platinum legs, which can be
> independently triggered to flex using precise laser zaps. The control is so
> accurate that the team was able to simultaneously jigger the legs of a
> battalion of microbots in a coordinated “march.”
>
> If you’re not impressed yet, there’s more: unlike previous microbots that
> relied on magnetism to move, these are basically miniaturized robots. Like
> BigDog <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog>, they have mechanical legs
> that are controlled with silicon-based electronic components. This means
> that it’s possible to manufacture the bots en masse using decades of
> nanofabrication experience, similar to how we currently make computer
> chips
> <https://singularityhub.com/2020/08/23/moores-law-lives-intel-says-chips-will-pack-50-times-more-transistors/>
> .
>
> Because the robots’ “brains” are conventional and based on classical
> electronic circuits, it also means that they can be more easily integrated
> with existing logic circuits to engineer even “smarter” next generations
> that respond to more complex commands.
>
> “[The authors] have used a fresh design concept for their microrobots,”
> wrote <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02421-2> Drs. Allan
> Brooks and Michael Strano at MIT in an accompanying piece of the paper.
> “Because the actuators can be operated by the low-power electric currents
> that typically flow through electronic circuits, sensors and logic
> components could be seamlessly integrated with the actuators …This opens
> the doors for the last 50 years of micro-electronics research to be
> incorporated into robots <https://singularityhub.com/tag/robotics/> so
> small they can’t be seen by the human eye.”"
>
> [image: nano robo.jpg]
> I look forward to hearing a comment about this development by Eric
> Drexler...
>
>
> https://singularityhub.com/2020/09/08/an-army-of-microscopic-robots-is-ready-to-patrol-your-body/
>
>
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