Microbots

These microscopic robots are smaller than a grain of sand. At 200 micrometers wide, they're autonomous, programmable, and cheap enough that high school students are already learning to operate them in labs.

If you're releasing a robot into the aquatic environment with no intention of retrieving it, that bot had better be biodegradable. Swiss scientists have gone a step better, with a li'l robot that can be consumed by fish when its job is done.

Researchers have taken another step forward in medical micro-robotics, designing a tiny sound-propelled bot with a unique design that mimics natural swimmers like bacteria. It can quickly move around the body to deliver drugs where they're needed.

Tiny 3D-printed robotic animals could one day delivering drugs directly to cancers, to help reduce side effects. These microrobots are steered by magnets, and only release their drug payload when they encounter the acidic environment around a tumor.

Nature is a never-ending source of inspiration for robots, whether it’s bees, bacteria or fish. Now an unlikely new candidate has joined the list – starfish larvae, which use tiny hairs to create a vortex to propel themselves or suck in food.

We've been hearing a lot lately about micro-robots, that could one day perform tasks such as capturing pollutants from the environment. Scientists have now created a sturdy batch of such bots, that heal back together when cut in two.

One day microscopic robots could be crawling through your body, clearing out disease or delivering drugs. And now we’re one step closer to that future, as scientists from Cornell University have created tiny robots powered by pulses of laser light.

It was seven years ago that we first heard about Harvard University's HAMR cockroach-inspired robot. Although the bot was already on the tiny side, its designers have now created a version that's just half its size – it's time to meet HAMR-JR.

Although we've previously heard about various groups' tiny "microbots," a new one is actually claimed to be the world's smallest microelectronic robot. What's more, it moves by shooting out dual jets of bubbles.

All living things are built with 20 amino acids in myriad combinations, so why not machines and robots? This is the inspiration for a novel fabrication method using a handful of multi-use parts to create all manner of tiny machines. Machines who eventually, may even be able to build themselves.

The potential for micro flying-robots in areas like search and rescue, agriculture and hazard detection is huge, but so are the hurdles. Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have been working on these problems with their Bee+, drawing inspiration from the insect world.

The human body is full of wildly different environments, so any robots exploring them need to be able to adapt on the fly. Now, researchers at EPFL and ETH Zurich have developed micro-robots that can automatically morph in response to their surroundings.