These Tiny Liquid Robots Merge and Split Like ‘Terminator’
1 min read
Summary
A team of Korean researchers has created liquid robots made of Teflon and water, roughly the size of a grain of rice, which can merge, split and move using sound waves.
The robots are biocompatible and could be used to shuttle drugs to hard-to-reach areas of the body, for example to deliver chemotherapies to kill tumours, or as a diagnostic tool.
The team wanted to create robots that emulated the versatility of human cells, and the “supreme deformability of liquids” whilst keeping a flexible shell.
These robots are manually controlled, but the team is looking at incorporating smart materials to give them autonomy.
The same process could be used to make robots from different materials in the future.
