It seems taken from the universe of science fiction, but it is something very real. At the moment in the laboratory phase, a group of researchers from Soochow University in Taiwan has created a liquid robot. One that can be shaped, divided and rebuilt in its entirety.
This liquid robot has been created with tiny droplets of a magnetic substance. Its full size, without decomposing, is one centimeter at most. Specifically, this has been created with magnetic iron oxide nanoparticleseither. These were then suspended in oil. Which, after all, makes this ferrofluid have a soft composition.
This composition is what, in fact, allows this little ingenuity to be able to modify its structure to go to the specific point that has been indicated. You can get around just about any obstacle that comes your way. Or, at least, that is the intention of the research team that is carrying it out.
To control its movement, the research team has taken advantage of the composition of the liquid robot itself. With a spherical magnet set power is maintained over this little mill. The devices also allow it to move and change shape when the situation requires it.
As you can see in the video posted by Science, the little liquid robot splits into a swarm and joins together. In the example case, their ability is tested in a maze, analyzing all possible paths and then joining.
The utilities of a liquid robot
The options that open up for this liquid robot are enormous, one that is linked to the investigation of soft robots, but the research team has two on the table. On the one hand, in laboratory tests to check and create chemical reactions in clinical trials. Especially in research with viruses or microscopic elements.
However, it is its medical use that the research team has highlighted the most. a liquid robot could be the solution to localized drug delivery in humans. The machine could contain the patient’s medications, which by swallowing them could be directed to the point where they should be inoculated. Its small size and its ability to adapt to the necessary shape and overcome obstacles would allow it to circulate through the arteries or capillaries of the human body. And, later, to reach the specific organs or tissues.
“Another use may be to remove blood clots in the brain that cause strokes, although creating a strong enough magnetic field to precisely move the robot inside the brain would be a challenge.”
Bradley Nelson of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
However, the research team still has to resolve some important questions. In addition to its scalability and price, the small size of the liquid robot complicates the transport of the doses of medicine that the patient in question needs. He too magnet system that are required to be able to maintain remote control over the machine, which must be powerful enough to do so through the tissue of the human body.