Research / Robot control
Tiny, vibration-driven robot developed
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are working on a tiny 3D-printed robot. It uses vibrations from piezo actuators, ultrasound sources or tiny loudspeakers to move around.
Research into microrobots is nothing new - other researchers have already worked on microrobots that use magnetic fields for locomotion, but magnetic forces are only useful for moving entire swarms at once and cannot simply be used to address individual robots within a swarm, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This is now set to change with the micro-bristle bots developed by the Georgia Tech researchers. The micro-robots are considered to be the smallest robots that are driven by vibrations. They are about as small as the smallest ant in the world.
In the future, the researchers from Atlanta are considering teaching the micro-bots to swim and jump. Azadeh Ansari, assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, on further plans: "For example, we can look at the collective behavior of ants and transfer what we learn from them to our little robots. The robots run well in a laboratory environment, but we still have a lot to do before they can go out into the outside world." Swarms of these micro-bristle bots could, for example, work together to recognize environmental changes, move materials or repair injuries in the human body.
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Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are working on a tiny 3D-printed robot that uses vibrations from piezo actuators, ultrasound sources or tiny loudspeakers to move.
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