How microbots swarm
Individual robots can work collectively as swarms to create major advances in everything from construction to surveillance, but microrobots’ small scale is ideal for drug delivery, disease diagnosis, and even surgeries.
Vibrating tiny robots could revolutionize research.
Individual robots can work collectively as swarms to create major advances in everything from construction to surveillance, but microrobots’ small scale is ideal for drug delivery, disease diagnosis, and even surgeries.
Despite their potential, microrobots’ size often means they have limited sensing, communication, motility, and computation abilities, but new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology enhances their ability to collaborate efficiently. The work offers a new system to control swarms of 300 3-millimeter microbristle robots’ (microbots) ability to aggregate and disperse controllably without onboard sensing.
The breakthrough is unique to Georgia Tech’s expertise in electric and computer engineering and robotics and its push for interdisciplinary collaborations.
“By collaborating with roboticists we were able to ‘close the gap’ between single robot design and swarm control,” said Azadeh Ansari, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). “So I guess the different elements were there, and we just made the connection.”
The researchers presented the work, “Controlling Collision-Induced Aggregations in a Swarm of Micro Bristle Robots,” in IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
The Challenges of Microbots
While larger robots can control movement through sensing the environment and wirelessly sending this data to each other, microbots do not have the capacity to carry the same sensors, communications, or power units. In this study, the researchers instead utilized inter-robot physical interactions to encourage robots to swarm.
“Microbots are too small to interpret and make decisions, but by using the collision between them and how they respond to frequency and the amplitude of global vibration actuation, we could influence how individual robots move and the collective behaviors of hundreds and thousands of these tiny robots,” said Zhijian Hao, an ECE Ph.D. student.
These behaviors, or motility characteristics, determine how microbots move linearly and the randomness in their rotation. By using vibration, the researchers could control these motility characteristics and perform motility-induced phase separation (MIPS). The researchers borrowed the concept from thermodynamics, when an agitated material can change phases from solid to gas to liquid. The researchers manipulated the level of vibration to influence the microbots to form clusters or disperse to create good spatial coverage.
To better understand these phase separations, they developed computational models and a live tracking system for the 300-robot swarm using computer vision. These enabled the researchers to analyze microrobots’ behavior and motion data that give rise to the swarm’s characteristics.
“This project is the first complete pipeline using this MIPS that can be generalized to different microbot swarms,” Hao said. “We hope people will find that using physical interactions is another new way to control the microbots, which initially was very difficult to do.”
Original Article: Using Vibrations to Control a Swarm of Tiny Robots
More from: Georgia Institute of Technology
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Swarm robotics
- Swarm of nanorobots can remove tiny plastic fragments from water
Tiny magnetic robots can help remove some of the smallest plastic particles from polluted water.
- Europe taps deep learning to make industrial robots safer colleagues
They centre around a disassembly robot, a warehouse robotic swarm, a prolonged hull of an autonomous vessel, and human-robotic interaction.
- Tekever unveils new swarm-controlling UAS
The UAS, called ARX, is the company’s first drone to include swarm capabilities and offers an array of sensor ... The US Army has intentions to develop light, medium and heavy variants of the Robotic ...
- Cyborg Cockroaches Programmed to Move in Formation
In an experiment out of The Terminator, scientists released a hoard of 20 cyborg cockroaches into a sandy artificial desert. Each live insect wore a tiny computer backpack that could control and steer ...
- Cyborg cockroach swarms promise to help in rescue missions
According to the researchers, the so-called cyborg insects used in conjunction with the control algorithm might enable multi-robot swarms to conduct search and rescue missions.
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Microbots
- Reuters Video
A new Ion bronchoscopy robot allows doctors to navigate the lungs with a virtual map produced from the CT scan and provides a real-time view as it navigates the breathing tubes of the lungs. Olivia ...
- Health Headlines: Microbots deliver life-saving care
Wyatt Shields, IV, PhD, Chemical & Biological Engineer at University of Colorado, Boulder says, “Medical microrobots are, essentially, microscale devices. So, we’re talking devices five to 10 times ...
- New STAR-SPIDER Costume Is a Spine-Tingling Corruption of Spider-Man's MCU Suit
Spider's potential as a character balances on the line between creepy and cool, offering a unique twist to the Spider-Verse. Warning: ...
- Live: Nifty drops over 200 points amid broad-based weakness| Closing Bell
Nifty snaps record run; index skids over 200 points .Benchmarks underperform broader markets Breadth weak; advance-decline ratio at 1:2. All sectors in the red led by pharma, FMCG & IT. Catch Yatin Mo ...
- How Seaweed Microbots may revolutionise cancer treatment: Insights from Research
Explore how researchers at TUM are pioneering seaweed microrobots, revolutionising medicine with their ability to navigate cell networks and stimulate individual cells for potential disease treatments ...