Engineers have developed a new soft magnetic hydrogel that can be 3D-printed into microscopic structures.
Compared with previous magnetic materials that move as a single unit, this new gel allows individual parts of a tiny robot to deform and move independently in response to an external magnet.
The development comes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), and the University of Cincinnati.
These magnetically controlled soft robots, or magno-bots, could be used in healthcare to collect tiny medical samples or deliver medicine into the body.
“We can now make a soft, intricate 3D architecture with components that can move and deform in complex ways within the same microscopic structure. For soft microscopic robotics, or stimuli-responsive matter, that could be a game-changing capability,” said Carlos Portela, study author from MIT.
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