According to the source blog, the robot's physical components get their smarts courtesy of a highly efficient processor, memory , and sensors. To program the robots, pulses of light are used – thus the solar panels do double duty. Meanwhile, to retrieve data from the robots and their sensors, they have been programmed to perform a honeybee-like waggle dance using their propulsion systems.
These robots can be deployed in their hundreds to get their tasks completed. Their autonomous operational life is measured in months, thanks to solar power and their level of efficiency. The first test sample carried a temperature sensor, which is good for all kinds of analytical tasks. However, it would not be challenging to switch the sensor.
Despite all this advanced technology at play, the researchers say that these fully programmable, autonomous robots “can be fabricated cheaply at scale,” costing only a penny each to produce. What we are seeing now is “just the first chapter” of micro-robots, promise the researchers.
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Mark Tyson Social Links Navigation News Editor Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
hotaru251 and thus begins the micro robot assassination part of history. mix em in w/ a person drink/food and they'll never know. Reply
Geef Maybe heat based power since someone would eat/drink them. Just imagine a little steam engine with a drill driving around your body making holes. Your body quickly patches them up but when there are 10k of them all doing the same thing… Or assassinate someone by giving them a ton of them right before an MRI. Thousands come tearing out of a person's body all at once. Eww. Reply
bit_user hotaru251 said: and thus begins the micro robot assassination part of history. mix em in w/ a person drink/food and they'll never know. No, stomach acid would destroy them and they won't get enough light in your digestive tract to power them. Furthermore, they (or their breakdown products) would be easily detectable, which is usually something you don't want in a poison. Reply
bit_user Geef said: Maybe heat based power since someone would eat/drink them. Just imagine a little steam engine with a drill Not plausible. Geef said: driving around your body making holes. Your body quickly patches them up but when there are 10k of them all doing the same thing… If all you guys want to do is just poison someone, there are lots of biological and chemical agents that would be much better at the task. The only role I see robotics potentially having is if you fed someone miniature enteric-coated capsules that contain a poison and could be opened via RF signal (or, maybe they'll open unless they keep receiving the RF signal!). Then, we enter James Bond villain territory, where you can inform someone they've just been fed a poison with no antidote you'll open the capsules if they don't do as you say. Still, these would stay in the digestive tract, and would therefore be subject to removal by one means or another. They'd also be subject to the limits of battery power. Geef said: Or assassinate someone by giving them a ton of them right before an MRI. Thousands come tearing out of a person's body all at once. Eww. You need robots for that… why?? Just put iron filings in someones food. Cheap and potentially even smaller than these robots. Reply
Tanakoi bit_user said: No, stomach acid would destroy them and they won't get enough light in your digestive tract to power them. Furthermore, they (or their breakdown products) would be easily detectable Stomach acid doesn't break down silicon. Any other breakdown products are those which are likely to be found in the body in minute quantities anyway. Obviously such nanobots would require a power source besides solar, but chemical sources abound in the body. bit_user said: You need robots for that… why?? Just put iron filings in someones food. Cheap and potentially even smaller than these robots. Eh? The human body can't absorb elemental iron; it has to be in the ferrous state … and stomach acid does a relatively poor job of that. Even pure ferrous iron would take 10+ grams to be a lethal dose (several thousand times the mass of one of these robots), and elemental iron would likely take 100g or more. I'm pretty sure I'd notice a tenth of a kilo of iron filings floating around my vodka martini. BTW, the SF author Vernor Vinge focuses on some of the astonishing (and still plausible) aspects of the multitudinous applications of such nanoprocessors in his books The Peace War and A Deepness in the Sky . Reply
bit_user Tanakoi said: Stomach acid doesn't break down silicon. Why do you think they're entirely silicon? Tanakoi said: Obviously such nanobots would require a power source besides solar, but chemical sources abound in the body. True. In bots made exclusively for medical purposes, I'd expect it should be possible to do something like that. Tanakoi said: Eh? The human body can't absorb elemental iron; it has to be in the ferrous state … and stomach acid does a relatively poor job of that. Who said anything about absorbing? just having it in your gut would be enough to have a really bad day in a MRI scanner. Tanakoi said: I'm pretty sure I'd notice a tenth of a kilo of iron fillings floating around my vodka martini. We were talking about food, not beverages. Reply
Tanakoi bit_user said: Why do you think they're entirely silicon? Did you not read my post? I specifically mentioned other breakdown products. In any case, if one was designing a nanobot for ingestion, coating it entirely with a thin silica layer is trivial, and wouldn't affect operation. bit_user said: Who said anything about absorbing? just having it in your gut would be enough to have a really bad day in a MRI scanner. You're not going to poison someone unless it's absorbed. And if it's not absorbed, why would you be going for an MRI? bit_user said: We were talking about food, not beverages. The OP specifically mentioned food and drink. Regardless, I think I'd notice a tenth of a kilo of iron filings whether it was in dim sum, Dover sole, or a Denver omelette. Reply
bit_user Tanakoi said: You're not going to poison someone unless it's absorbed. And if it's not absorbed, why would you be going for an MRI? If you read the post I was responding to, Geef talked about dosing someone who was about to have a MRI scan (for presumably unrelated or otherwise contrived reasons). Tanakoi said: The OP specifically mentioned food and drink. Regardless, I think I'd notice a tenth of a kilo of iron filings whether it was in dim sum, Dover sole, or a Denver omelette. Again, you're thinking about a toxic dose, not Geef's scenario. Also, the iron could be coated so it doesn't have that characteristic iron taste. Reply
Geef Geef said: Just imagine a little steam engine with a drill driving around your body making holes. We all know my post is the best just because you can imagine a little fat robot dude driving a steam engine drill tooting the horn! :p Reply
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/maker-stem/robot-kits/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/maker-stem/robot-kits/worlds-smallest-fully-programmable-autonomous-robots-are-smaller-than-a-grain-of-salt-cost-one-penny-apiece-researchers-expect-new-micron-scale-robots-to-be-used-in-medicine-microscale-manufacturing-and-other-areas#main
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