Sub-Millimeter Robots Can Sense, Think, and Act Autonomously, New Study Finds

Robots that can control at the microscopic level are coming. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan has built sub-millimeter scale robots that are small enough to move around using onboard batteries, processors, and sensors but require no outside control. These minuscule robots, as small as a grain of rice, achieved independent decision-making in tests carried out inside laboratories, and represent a huge leap forward for the field of microrobotics with potential medicine, manufacturing, and environmental applications.

CMOS-Powered Microrobots Can Sense, Compute, and Act Independently, Enabling Mass Production

According to a report published in Science Robotics, the researchers utilized Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology to incorporate processors, sensors, and photovoltaic cells that allow their robots to be as 210-270 micrometers. The microrobots dynamically altered movements in 56 trials as they sensed, computed, and otherwise acted completely on their own – an advance beyond previous designs that required large external control systems.

The advanced cuts costs and complexity, with digital programming enabling an individual to program several different tasks and reprogram the robot after it has been built. By incorporating computation within the robot's body, operational overhead is reduced so much that hundreds of robots can be produced at once on a single chip.

Next-Gen Microrobots Aim for Wireless Movement, Paving the Way for Autonomous Medical Applications

Future plans are to create wireless locomotion, so that the robots move without needing external sources of light. Such advances might also help to usher in the era of self-distant medical microrobots that can traverse through the body to mend damaged tissues or administer drugs locally.

The finding hints at what can be achieved with such programmable, autonomous microrobots that can be made cheaply at small scales.