This Autonomous Aquatic Robot Is Smaller Than a Grain of Salt

"While engineers have made great strides in the miniaturization of electronics in the past few decades, builders of miniature autonomous robots have not been able to meet the goal of getting them under 1 millimeter in size. This is because small arms and legs are fragile and difficult to manufacture. Above all, the circumstances of the laws of physics change in the microscopic world. Instead of gravity and inertia, drag and viscosity become dominant."

"Against this backdrop, researchers in the US have announced the results of a study that accomplishes a 40-year-old challenge. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan has developed a new robot that is smaller than a grain of salt, measuring only 200 x 300 x 50 micrometers. At 0.3 mm on its longest side, that's far below the 1-mm threshold. Yet it can sense its surroundings, make decisions on its own, and swim and move in water."

Miniaturization of autonomous robots has been hindered by fragile mechanical limbs and by physical forces at microscopic scales, where drag and viscosity dominate over gravity and inertia. A team from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan built an autonomous robot measuring 200 × 300 × 50 micrometers (about 0.3 mm) that senses its surroundings, makes decisions, swims, and moves in water. The robot operates without external wires or magnetic fields and reportedly costs about one cent per unit. The propulsion system represents a breakthrough for microrobotics.

Read at WIRED