🤖 AI Kirigami Robots
Researchers from Cornell University have created microscale robots that fold into 3D shapes and crawl under the influence of electrical signals. The scientists took inspiration from the Japanese kirigami technique, an origami variation.
🧬 The robot, measuring less than 1mm, is a hexagonal tiling comprising about 100 silicon dioxide panels. These are connected through more than 200 actuating hinges, each about 10 nanometers thin, about the size of microorganisms. Depending on which hinges are activated, the robot can adapt various 3D shapes, wrap itself around other objects, and then unfold back into a flat sheet.
😖 This lab has previously developed microrobots that can pump water via artificial cilia and walk autonomously. In the future, scientists plan to combine the microrobots' flexible mechanical structures with electronic controllers to create super-reactive materials with properties that would never be possible in nature.
These active metamaterials — these elastronic materials — could form the basis for a new type of intelligent matter governed by physical principles that transcend what is possible in the natural world.
Itai Cohen, professor of physics at Cornell University
The use
➡️ Medicine: in microsurgery and target therapies
➡️ Studying of hard-to-reach ecosystems
➡️ Aerospace engineering, as well as new-generation materials that can change properties on demand
More on the topic:
Google DeepMind Trains Robot to Play Ping-Pong
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