Penn and Michigan researchers have built programmable robots smaller than a grain of salt. Each measures 200:300:50 micrometres, costs about a penny, and can swim, sense temperature, make decisions and operate for months on light alone.
The swimming mechanism is ingenious. Instead of moving like fish, they generate electrical fields that nudge charged particles in the liquid, which drag water molecules along. At microscopic scale, pushing through water is like pushing through tar, so conventional propulsion fails. These work with physics rather than against it. They communicate by performing tiny dances that encode information, similar to honeybees, and only slightly less adorable.
Can you spot it?
🧐 What's in it for me? These could eventually monitor individual cells in your body or assemble components for electronics, though "eventually" is doing quite a lot of work there. The researchers designed them as a platform for future development, watch this space.
💵 Out of the Lab: The prize goes to whoever finds a scalable use case, then solves mass production.
TBD whether Marc Miskin (researcher) is planning on commercialising this himself, but we’ll be watching closely if so
Bionaut Labs is already playing around with microscale robots for medicine and might find this useful.
Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) could theoretically deploy swarms for semiconductor manufacturing, although this is extremely speculative.
Until next time, stay curious.
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