SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Researchers are testing a way to control a single microbot that operates as part of a group [futurity.org]. The robots are too small for batteries, so instead magnetic fields allow them to move independently while collaborating with a team.

The robots tested are magnetic disks about 2 millimeters in diameter—about twice the size of a pinhead—that slide across a surface. The goal is to create microbots that are around 250 microns in diameter, or roughly the size of a dust mite.

“The reason we want independent movement of each robot is so they can do cooperative manipulation tasks,” says David Cappelleri, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University. “Think of ants. They can independently move, yet all work together to perform tasks such as lifting and moving things.

“We want to be able to control them individually so we can have some robots here doing one thing, and some robots there doing something else at the same time.”

Original study [doi.org].

Original Submission