Tiny 3D-printed vibration-powered robot created to help attack diseases in body

Advancing in the field of robotics, researchers have created new tiny vibration-powered robots that are the size of the world’s smallest ant, and will be used in future to attack diseases in the body.

Researchers from Georgia Tech recently created new 3D-printed microbots that are even smaller than a penny and powered by vibrations. The robots merely weigh 5mg, a little more than a sand grain.

The robots that are expected to one day attack diseases within the body, are designed in such a way that they response only to vibrations produced from a tiny acoustic speaker to an attacked piezoelectric actuator, explained Futurism.

“As the micro-bristle-bots move up and down, the vertical motion is translated into a directional movement by optimizing the design of the legs, which look like bristles,” researcher Azadeh Ansari said. “The legs of the micro-robot are designed with specific angles that allow them to bend and move in one direction in resonant response to the vibration.”

Video Courtesy: Georgia Tech/YouTube

The team believes that their vibration-powered robots can have many future applications, such as they can be used by environmental researchers as armies of them for monitoring an ecosystem. Medical experts too can one day deploy them in the human body, to either deliver medications or repair injuries.

However, the researchers say that for these applications, they still would needs to scale-up their microbot production in order to make them more robust.

“These micro-bristle-bots walk nicely in a laboratory environment, but there is a lot more we will have to do before they can go out into the outside world,” said Ansari.