Microrobot

The appearance of microrobots was made possible thanks to the creation of microcontrollers in the last decade of the 20th century, and the development of miniature silicon-based mechanical systems (MEMS), although many microrobots do not use silicon for mechanical parts, excluding sensors. The first studies and conceptual design of such small robots were carried out in the early 1970s in the (at that time) classified research for American intelligence agencies .

Practical application at that time included the release of prisoners of war and radio and radio reconnaissance missions. The auxiliary technical means underlying miniaturization were not sufficiently developed at that time, with early calculations and the concept of technical requirements there was no obvious progress in the development of prototypes.

The development of wireless connections , especially Wi-Fi (that is, in home networks) has significantly increased the throughput of microrobots, and therefore their ability to interact with other microbots to perform more complex tasks. Indeed, many recent studies have focused on the connection between microbots, including the group communication of 1,024 robots at Harvard University , which can be assembled into designs of various forms; and manufacturing microrobots from SRI International for the Agency for Defense Advanced Research Projects (AOPIR) program “Mini-enterprise: managing promising research programs on a large scale”, which can create a structure that combines light weight and high strength.

While the prefix “micro” was subjectively used to mean “small,” standardization of length scales avoids confusion. Thus, nanorobots will have characteristic dimensions of less than 1 micrometer, or could control components in the range from 1 to 1000 nm. A microrobot would have characteristic dimensions of less than 1 mm, and a millirobot would be smaller than cm, a mini robot less than 10 cm (4 inches), and a small robot would be designated as having a size less than 100 cm (39 inches).

Due to the small size of the microrobots, their creation is potentially very cheap, and they can be used in large numbers ( many swarms ) to study conditions that are too small or too dangerous for humans or large robots. The use of microrobots is expected to be useful in activities such as finding survivors in destroyed buildings after earthquakes, or, for medical purposes, to study the digestive tract. What microrobots lack in strength or processing power, they can make up for with the help of a large number of them.

One of the main problems in the development of microrobots is the achievement of efficiency using limited power supply . In microrobots, you can use a battery with a low specific gravity, such as a miniature battery, or use environmental energy in the form of vibration or light energy. Also, microrobots currently use biological motors as power sources, for example, Serratia marcescens flagellar motor proteins, which draw chemical energy from the surrounding biological fluid to drive an automated device. These biorobots can be directly controlled by stimuli such as chemotaxis or galvanotaxis with several available control schemes. A popular alternative to batteries on board is to drive robots using externally induced power. Examples include the use of electromagnetic fields, ultrasound, and light to activate and control microrobots.

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