The world of nanotechnology has entered a new era with the emergence of the world’s smallest automatic robot, which is less than a grain of salt, and researchers have succeeded in designing a machine that can be made at the cost of a penny. This microscopic robot, developed by a team of Cornell University scientists, receives the energy it needs directly from ambient light through thin layers of silicon and very fine solar cells.
According to Tekna Technology News Media, citing Cornell University, these miniature robots do not have batteries or traditional wiring systems, and instead use electrochemical actuators to move and interact with their surroundings, an innovation that greatly reduces the cost of mass production. The amazing thing about the design of these tiny parts is their communication method, so that these machines transmit information to other robots or optical receivers by performing certain rhythmic and oscillating movements.
Itai Cohen, as the head of this research project, believes that the simplicity of the design and the cheap chipping process of these robots allows thousands of them to be released simultaneously in different environments. These robots can be used in the future to monitor the health of the internal tissues of the human body or identify very small pollutants in water tanks without the need for direct human intervention.
The structure of these robots is such that they can be manufactured using standard semiconductor manufacturing techniques at the millionth scale, and each unit has rudimentary environmental sensors despite being micron in size. This scientific achievement shows the high potential of nanoscale autonomous machines that rely on renewable energy sources to perform complex inspection and cleaning tasks in inaccessible environments.
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