The researchers’ microrobots use “physical intelligence” to exert control over nearby objects. By spinning and disrupting the alignment of the liquid crystal surrounding them, the robots can attract smaller particles to their edges, then precisely deposit them.
(Image: Penn Engineering Today)
Penn Engineers are working to make controlling microscopic processes, such as transporting drugs to tumors for precise therapies, faster, safer, and more reliable through the use of microrobots.
Controlling microscopic processes is inherently challenging. The everyday tools used to manipulate matter on the macroscale can’t simply be shrunk down to the size of cell, and even if they could, the physical forces they rely on work differently when their targets are measured in nanometers. But while it’s no easy feat, attaining this type of control would pay enormous dividends, whether it’s transporting drugs to tumors for precise therapies, or making functional materials out of the liquid-suspended building blocks known as colloids. Penn Engineers are working to make these processes faster, safer and more reliable through the use of microrobots.
Since they’re too small for their own onboard computers, microrobots move about by means of an external magnetic force. And to manipulate equally small cargo, they need to take advantage of the different physical and chemical laws that rule the microscale.
At those sizes, every object is greatly influenced by the molecules surrounding it. Whether they are surrounded by gas, like the ambient atmosphere, or immersed in a liquid, microrobots must be designed to exploit this influence through a concept known as “physical intelligence.”
Kathleen Stebe, Richer & Elizabeth Goodwin Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tianyi Yao, a former Ph.D. student in her lab, Qi Xing Zhang, a current Ph.D. student, and collaborators in the group of Professor Miha Ravnik at the University of Ljubljana are conducting fundamental research that will lay the groundwork for understanding these small-scale interactions in a colloidal fluid of nematic liquid crystals (NLCs), the fluid that makes up each pixel in a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen.
In a study published in Advanced Functional Materials the research team describes a four-armed, magnetically controlled microrobot that can swim, carry cargo and actively restructure particles in this complex fluid.
Being able to manipulate processes on this level is groundbreaking, and understanding how robotic systems are able to perform tasks in an indirect way, considering the fluid dynamics and physical interactions of the media as a part of the microrobot’s design, is key.
Stebe and her team are now able to imagine real-world applications for this technology in the optical device industry as well as many other fields. Smart materials, aware of their environment, may be designed using temperature and light as controls for microrobotic tasks.
Original Article: Tiny swimming robots can restructure materials on a microscopic level
More from: University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science | University of Ljubljana
The Latest Updates from Bing News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Synthetic molecular motors
- Will full synthetic oil make your engine last longer?
Unlike conventional motor oil, which is derived from crude oil, synthetic oil is artificially engineered in a laboratory. This process allows manufacturers to precisely tailor the oil’s molecular ...
- Molecular Motors: Methods and Protocols: 392 (Methods in Molecular Biology, 392) - Hardcover
the book is a treasure of data, facts, protocols, and references that nearly every cell biologist and biochemist with an interest in molecular motors will cherish." (Tzvi Tzfira, The Quarterly Review ...
- Team creates synthetic enzymes to unravel molecular mysteries
A bioengineer has developed synthetic enzymes that can control the behavior of the signaling protein Vg1, which plays a key role in the development of muscle, bone and blood in vertebrate embryos.
- Team creates synthetic enzymes to unravel molecular mysteries
The team of researchers is using a new approach, called the Synthetic Processing (SynPro) system, in zebrafish to study how Vg1 is formed. By learning the molecular rules of signal formation in a ...
- Molecular Nanotechnology Has Been Successful When Properly Funded
carbon nanotube and graphene synthetic modifications, graphene oxide, carbon composites, hydrogen storage on nanoengineered carbon scaffolds, and synthesis of single-molecule nanomachines which ...
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Magnetically controlled microrobot
- Remote Magnetically Controlled Chemically Fueled Micromotor Disks
Achieving this goal requires control of their motion trajectories on demand with precision. The addition of asymmetrically placed nickel stripes to chemically powered gold–platinum disks allows for ...
- The Computer That Controlled Chernobyl
But have you ever considered that where there is a nuclear reactor, there is a computer control system? What computers were in control of the infamous reactor? [Chornobyl Family] has the answer in ...
- Novel scheme for non-invasive gut bioinformation acquisition with a magnetically controlled sampling capsule endoscope
Current approaches for acquiring information regarding microbiota/metabolites have limitations. We aimed to develop a precise magnetically controlled sampling capsule endoscope (MSCE) for the ...
- AnX Robotica Announces Expanded Indications of Magnetically Controlled Capsule Endoscopy
PLANO, Texas, Nov. 2, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- AnX Robotica Corporation (www.anxrobotics.com), the developer and manufacturer of the NaviCam® Magnetically Controlled Capsule Endoscopy System (MCCE), is ...
- Infection prevention and control
Learn how to prevent and control infections in your home, at work, at school or even in a hospital. Find resources for health professionals. Infection prevention and control (IPC) is a term used to ...
