At Drexel University in Philadelphia, researchers have been working on tiny remote-controlled robotic microswimmers that may one day lead to tiny medical devices for surgery, drug delivery, and other applications. The investigators are reporting in the journal Scientific Reports on new microscopic robots that can split up and re-link together, gaining unique swimming abilities that are different depending on the configurations they take.
The tiny devices are controlled by an external rotating magnetic field and the more of them link up in a chain the faster they get. At least up to the 13 bead chains that they were able to achieve in the initial experiments, which got up to a speed of 18 microns per second.
These microswimmers may potentially serve as a sort of multi-warhead delivery vehicles that quickly get to the target and then break up to deliver a drug or attack tissue in some other ways.
Check them out in this video:
Medgadget flashbacks of related Drexel University research: Microrobots to Drill Through Blocked Arteries…; Bacteria-powered Bio-Bots Avoid Obstacles on Way to Target…
Study in Scientific Reports: Versatile microrobotics using simple modular subunits…
Via: Drexel University…