Scientists Create Programmable, Autonomous Robots Smaller Than a Grain of Salt (upenn.edu) 46
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan "have created the world's smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots," according to a recent announcement.
The announcement calls them "microscopic swimming machines that can independently sense and respond to their surroundings, operate for months and cost just a penny each." Barely visible to the naked eye, each robot measures about 200 by 300 by 50 micrometers, smaller than a grain of salt. Operating at the scale of many biological microorganisms, the robots could advance medicine by monitoring the health of individual cells and manufacturing by helping construct microscale devices. Powered by light, the robots carry microscopic computers and can be programmed to move in complex patterns, sense local temperatures and adjust their paths accordingly... "We've made autonomous robots 10,000 times smaller," says Marc Miskin, Assistant Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering at Penn Engineering and the papers' senior author. "That opens up an entirely new scale for programmable robots."
The announcement describes them as "the first truly autonomous, programmable robots at this scale" (as described in two recent academic articles). The team had to design a new propulsion system that utilized the unique locomotion physics in the microscopic realm, according to the university's announcement. So the robots "generate an electrical field that nudges ions in the surrounding solution." Those ions, in turn, push on nearby water molecules, animating the water around the robot's body. "It's as if the robot is in a moving river," says Miskin, "but the robot is also causing the river to move." The robots can adjust the electrical field that causes the effect, allowing them to move in complex patterns and even travel in coordinated groups, much like a school of fish, at speeds of up to one body length per second...
To be truly autonomous, a robot needs a computer to make decisions, electronics to sense its surroundings and control its propulsion, and tiny solar panels to power everything, and all that needs to fit on a chip that is a fraction of a millimeter in size. This is where David Blaauw's team at the University of Michigan came into action... The robots are programmed by pulses of light that also power them. Each robot has a unique address that allows the researchers to load different programs on each robot. "This opens up a host of possibilities," adds Blaauw, "with each robot potentially performing a different role in a larger, joint task."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot for sharing the news.
The announcement calls them "microscopic swimming machines that can independently sense and respond to their surroundings, operate for months and cost just a penny each." Barely visible to the naked eye, each robot measures about 200 by 300 by 50 micrometers, smaller than a grain of salt. Operating at the scale of many biological microorganisms, the robots could advance medicine by monitoring the health of individual cells and manufacturing by helping construct microscale devices. Powered by light, the robots carry microscopic computers and can be programmed to move in complex patterns, sense local temperatures and adjust their paths accordingly... "We've made autonomous robots 10,000 times smaller," says Marc Miskin, Assistant Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering at Penn Engineering and the papers' senior author. "That opens up an entirely new scale for programmable robots."
The announcement describes them as "the first truly autonomous, programmable robots at this scale" (as described in two recent academic articles). The team had to design a new propulsion system that utilized the unique locomotion physics in the microscopic realm, according to the university's announcement. So the robots "generate an electrical field that nudges ions in the surrounding solution." Those ions, in turn, push on nearby water molecules, animating the water around the robot's body. "It's as if the robot is in a moving river," says Miskin, "but the robot is also causing the river to move." The robots can adjust the electrical field that causes the effect, allowing them to move in complex patterns and even travel in coordinated groups, much like a school of fish, at speeds of up to one body length per second...
To be truly autonomous, a robot needs a computer to make decisions, electronics to sense its surroundings and control its propulsion, and tiny solar panels to power everything, and all that needs to fit on a chip that is a fraction of a millimeter in size. This is where David Blaauw's team at the University of Michigan came into action... The robots are programmed by pulses of light that also power them. Each robot has a unique address that allows the researchers to load different programs on each robot. "This opens up a host of possibilities," adds Blaauw, "with each robot potentially performing a different role in a larger, joint task."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot for sharing the news.
Oh goodie (Score:3)
The conspiracty theory wackos will now point to this and say they told everyone. Now they really won't get any vaccinations.
On a (slightly) more serious note, this is neat. Could these robots be programmed to go to a specific body part and deliver a bit of medicine rather than the current method of using a shotgun? If so, cancer treatments would greatly benefit.
Re: (Score:2)
The conspiracty theory wackos will now point to this and say they told everyone. Now they really won't get any vaccinations.
You're being FAR too childish in your thinking.
On a (slightly) more serious note, this is neat. Could these robots be programmed to go to a specific body part and deliver a bit of medicine rather than the current method of using a shotgun? If so, cancer treatments would greatly benefit.
On a slightly more realistic and nefarious note, this is evil. Could these robots be programmed to go to a specific body part and deliver a bit of death rather than the current assumption of helping humanity? If so, ants could have been the source of that lethal vehicle design all along.
Re:Oh goodie (Score:4, Insightful)
Tech is neither good nor evil. All technological devices have potential for evil use, as well as potential for good use. Moral evaluations apply to actions, not objects.
Re: Oh goodie (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to be implying that bombs are only evil and can only be used for evil, and that makes them "evil objects."
More generally, "explosives" are the technology that bombs are made of, and they have many non-evil uses in construction, demolition, firework displays, etc.
Even when we wrap an explosive up in a shell and call it a "bomb," it then qualifies as a weapon and has all the non-evil uses that weapons have (which is to say, preventing violence through deterrence, and protecting the innocent by being
Re: (Score:2)
That's about what they did for hundreds of thousands of years. Sometimes they sharpened the face of the hammer, but not always. (See "mace".)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Tech is neither good nor evil. All technological devices have potential for evil use, as well as potential for good use. Moral evaluations apply to actions, not objects.
And when will morality be a calculated variable with every technology?
Please refer to human history for near-infinite amounts of ignorance to validate why I'm asking. We created the nuclear weapon as a way to end wars, and yet we still find a way to wage them and simply ignore nuclear weapons. That is what we're capable of doing with "technology".
Technology being used for evil, doesn't need anything more than ignorance to do it.
Re: (Score:1)
Can't take over my mind (Score:3)
They can't take over my mind with vaccine robots if I make my mind into a senseless hellscape of conflicting conspiracies and irrational xenophobia. Checkmate Biden!
How exactly (Score:2)
Re: How exactly (Score:2)
You heard about infrared, terahertz, or x-rays? Even visible light can be enough if you can sense individual photons, which biological systems can do
Re: (Score:2)
Have you ever placed a flashlight behind your hand?
We are the Borg (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Resistance is futile.
Which means futile is V / I. :-)
Good (Score:2)
So can we stop fucking around with useless AI and start focusing on anti-aging?
Re: (Score:3)
You're probably going to need AI to make these things really useful.
(Expect the AI to be an external controller. I expect that our swarms aren't smart enough to handle the job.)
Re: (Score:1)
Um thats only for 9 figure plus people
Re: Good (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/_enkgH6Vrxk?s... [youtu.be]
Amazing! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Technology development is moving amazingly fast..
Not in this case. According to TFA, no more than one body-length per second.
Re: (Score:2)
Nerd Details? (Score:2)
First. Kudos to these fuckers. That is some epic miniaturization. A little frightening when you think about stealth computers. But, we need nerdy details.
Which OS is it running?
Which language is it being programmed in?
I feel pretty constrained by an ESP32 micro controller, I can't imagine trying to shoehorn something useful into something so tiny.
Re: (Score:3)
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
Re: Nerd Details? (Score:3)
Interesting question, but more importantly, can it run DOOM?
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting question, but more importantly, can it run DOOM?
I really don't think that's an "important" question to raise in a room full of doctors trying to help humanity.
The military quietly listening in the background however, might be looking to run DOOM on a foreign body..
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
What happens when their regular operation is interrupted with ads? Once every 7 minutes and 19 seconds the lot of them in your body proper will transmit an ad their fellow bots in your brain. Near to an election, you won't have a coherent thought due to some pol describing the utter devastation that will befall the country if s/he is dis-elected.
Re: (Score:3)
The article gives some details.
“We had to totally rethink the computer program instructions,” says Blaauw, “condensing what conventionally would require many instructions for propulsion control into a single, special instruction to shrink the program’s length to fit in the robot’s tiny memory space.”
So I'm suspecting that it has just a few high level instructions. Apparently they can issue commands to it with modulated light, but it can't respond that way at present. Prob
Re: (Score:2)
Which OS is it running?
NetBSD [wikipedia.org] will get ported to it in 3.... 2... 1... :-)
Tagline: "Of course it runs NetBSD"
Grey Goo (Score:2)
in 3...2...1...
Re: (Score:2)
No need.
Humans are the grey goo, already.
self-replicating, check.
survival overrides original purpose/value/utility, check.
replicate out of any natural balance with predator/prey/ecology cycles, check.
voraciously devour all resources in their native environment, check.
develop invasive approach to all other environments, check.
increase the amount of entropy in the biome, check.
increasingly rapidly assimilate all raw materials to where everything on the planet is either themselves or their waste products, chec
Re: (Score:2)
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The Agent was wrong, when humans hit a certain critical mass we develop medicine and education for women, which drastically drops birth rates. It's still a race between various parts of human nature to see who wins out in the end.
Falling birth rates have little import to rapacious resource depletion.
We all have lower birth rates now than everyone did 2000 years ago when reproduction began in the early to mid teens and cultural polygamy/handmaids/concubines were common. But 90% of individuals currently alive, each consume as much energy/resources/water over their lifetime as entire villages 2000 years ago.
There is no reason to expect that a population plateau will result in lower total consumption.
Grey goo gonna goo.
This is a bad idea (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: This is a bad idea (Score:2)
(left blank) (Score:2)
Replicators. This is how you get replicators!
Could these unblock arteries? (Score:2)
Inject these little buggers, have them chomp, chomp, chomp... Have them meet at an injection point like Fantastic Voyage without the body count. Use a hypodermic needle to get those suckers out. And BINGO!, "Doctor, I owe you an onion blossom!"
Re: (Score:2)
Nanites, of course!
A host of possibilities? (Score:2)
While the prospect of welcoming microscopic robotic overlords sounds amazing, let's not forget it's a research project, so I suggest to take this announcement with a grain of (robotic) salt.
The next gen of these is in my novel (Score:2)
The second or third generation of these is *exactly* what I described in Becoming Terran, which dropped in early 2024. (The politics are becoming more "current news" as well...)
Cartoon Robots (Score:2)
200x300x50 micron robots shaped like Magic School buses :)