Engineers at Northwestern University have developed the smallest remote-controlled walking robot ever, and it comes in the shape of a small, adorable peekytoe crab.
At just half a millimeter wide, small crabs can bend, twist, crawl, walk, turn, and even jump. Researchers also developed millimeter-sized robots resembling inch worms, crickets, and beetles. Although the research is exploratory at the moment, researchers believe that its technology could bring the field closer to making micro-sized robots that can perform practical tasks within very confined spaces.
The research will be published Wednesday (May 25) in the journal Science Robotics. Last September, the same team introduced a winged microchip that was the smallest flying structure ever made by man.
“Robotics is an exciting field of research, and the development of microscale robots is a fun topic for academic exploration,” said John A. Rogers, who led the experimental work. “You can imagine micro-robots as agents for repairing or assembling small structures or machines in industry, or as surgical assistants to clear clogged arteries, stop internal bleeding, or remove cancerous tumors, all in minimally invasive procedures. “.
“Our technology allows for a variety of controlled motion modes and you can walk at an average speed of half your body length per second,” added Yonggang Huang, who led the theoretical work. “This is very difficult to achieve on such a small scale for terrestrial robots.”
A pioneer in bioelectronics, Rogers is Professor Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Neurological Surgery at McCormick School of Engineering and Feinberg School of Medicine and the director of the Querrey Simpson Institute of Bioelectronics (QSIB). . Huang is Professor Jan and Marcia Achenbach of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at McCormick and a key member of QSIB.
Smaller than a flea, the crab does not feed on complex hardware, hydraulics, or electricity. Instead, its power lies within the elastic resistance of its body. To build the robot, the researchers used a memory material with a shape so that it transforms into its “remembered” shape when heated. In this case, the researchers used a scanned laser beam to quickly warm the robot in different places on its body. A thin layer of glass elastically returns the corresponding part of the structure to its deformed shape as it cools.
As the robot changes from one phase to another, deforming into a remembered shape and again, it creates locomotion. The laser not only remotely controls the robot to activate it, but the laser scanning direction also determines the direction of travel of the robot. Exploring from left to right, for example, causes the robot to move from right to left.
“Because these structures are so small, the cooling rate is very fast,” Rogers explained. “In fact, reducing the size of these robots allows them to run faster.”
To make such a small creature, Rogers and Huang resorted to a technique they introduced eight years ago: an emerging assembly method inspired by a child’s emerging book.
First, the team fabricated precursors of walking crab structures into flat, flat geometries. They then bonded these precursors onto a lightly stretched rubber substrate. When the stretched substrate relaxes, a controlled buckling process occurs that causes the crab to “appear” in precisely defined three-dimensional shapes.
With this manufacturing method, the Northwest team could develop robots of different shapes and sizes. So why a mirror crab? We can thank Rogers and Huang students for this.
“With these assembly techniques and material concepts, we can build robots that walk with almost any size or 3D shape,” Rogers said. “But the students were inspired and amused by the crawling side movements of the little crabs. It was a creative whim.”
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Materials provided by Northwestern University. Original written by Amanda Morris. Note: Content can be edited by style and length.