Researchers Create Creepy Microscopic Robot Crab That Can't Be Felt On Human Skin

Researchers at Illinois-based Northwestern University have created a tiny bot crab, which they claim is the smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot.

What Happened: The half-millimeter (0.02 inch) wide robot, which is smaller than a flea, can carry out a wide range of bodily motions such as walking, bending, twisting, turning, and jumping, reported Northwestern Now, an university news platform.

The tiny robot is the work of Northwestern researchers John Rogers and Yonggang Huang, responsible for the experimental and theoretical fronts, respectively.

“You might imagine micro-robots as agents to repair or assemble small structures or machines in industry or as surgical assistants to clear clogged arteries, to stop internal bleeding or to eliminate cancerous tumors — all in minimally invasive procedures,” said Rogers.

Huang noted that the robots could walk with an average speed of half its body length per second. “This is very challenging to achieve at such small scales for terrestrial robots,” said Huang.

The manufacturing of the robots was reportedly inspired by a child’s pop-up book. They are fabricated in flat, planar geometries initially and then bonded to a stretched rubber substrate. When the substrate is relaxed, buckling allows the robot to take a three-dimensional form. 

The researchers have also developed robots resembling other insects such as inchworms, crickets, and beetles, reported Northwestern Now.

Why It Matters: The crab robot is so small that it cannot be felt on human skin and can move without being detected, according to a Gizmodo report.

The crab robot is not powered by electricity or complex hardware, but instead, it is powered by the elastic resilience of its own body, which is constructed out of a shape-memory alloy, noted Northwestern Now.

Researchers used a scan laser beam to heat various locations of the robot’s body — which is coated with a thin layer of glass. This glass coating deforms to shape upon cooling.

Locomotion is achieved as the robot changes from one phase to another. Cooling is rapid due to the small size of the robot. In fact, the smaller the robot, the faster it can move, according to the report.

While the robots created by Northwestern could be used to perform tasks inside the human body, Tesla Inc TSLA is building Optimus, a robot that would have enough intelligence to navigate the real world without being instructed. 

Meanwhile, Amazon.com, Inc AMZN is selling Astro, an armless robot with Alexa voice assistant built-in that it says can help with home monitoring. 

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