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DARTMOUTH BOT
Dartmouth bot can perform complex tasks
A tiny robot the size of a speck can repair computer chips.
NEW YORK: Can you imagine a ‘speck of a robot’ performing little things?. This is not the plot of any science fiction movie which is set to hit the screens, but reality, courtesy researchers of the Dartmouth College, New Hampshire county. The size of the robot can be made out from the fact that around 200 of such robots could fit on the tip of a finger.
The Dartmouth College scientists created a miniscule robot, which is as small as a speck. They claim that it can perform complex tasks, including repairing computer chip circuits.
Not exactly the stuff of nanotechnology horror stories so far, but these bots are real small indeed. The US Department of Homeland Security is co-funding the project.
The newly created robot can crawl across a grid at the speed of 200 microns per second and would be able to perform what its makers called “little things”.
The robot, which has been named Dartmouth bot, has two bits of memory. The Dartmouth bot also has two actuators, which can convert energy into motion, the reports said.
Scientists manipulate the electrical changes in the grid with a computer to control the speed and direction of the tiny robot. The robot is too stiny, and therefore cannot cannot carry any kind of a power storage system. But they can be controlled by electrical signals on a special insulated surface.
A leg movement would be almost ten nanometers and the fastest it can take is 20,000 steps in a second.
Enthused by the tiny robot’s performance, scientists are visualising swarms of such robots and make them perform much more complex tasks, such as perhaps making them build a microfactory. That could still be some time far away, bt the possibilities are exciting and terrifying at the same time.
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