The legacy of microscale robotics at Cornell continues to unfold – and refold and unfold itself again.&nbsp;The latest addition is a robot less than 1 millimeter in size that is printed as a 2D hexagonal “metasheet” but, with a jolt of electricity, morphs into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawls.The robot’s versatility is due to a novel design based on kirigami, a cousin of origami in which slices in the material (the Japanese word “kiru” means “to cut”) enable it to fold, expand and locomote.The team’s paper, “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-024-02007-7" target="_blank">Electronically Configurable Microscopic Metasheet Robots</a>,” published Sept. 11 in Nature Materials. The paper’s co-lead authors are postdoctoral researchers Qingkun Liu and Wei Wang, Ph.D. ’24.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1726203334926-ezgif-7-160aeb254f.gif" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The project was led by <a href="http://physics.cornell.edu/itai-cohen" target="_blank">Itai Cohen</a>, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&amp;S), whose <a href="https://cohengroup.lassp.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">lab</a> has previously produced microrobotic systems that can <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/08/laser-jolts-microscopic-electronic-robots-motion" target="_blank">actuate their limbs</a>, pump water via <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/05/artificial-cilia-could-someday-power-diagnostic-devices" target="_blank">artificial cilia</a> and <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/09/brains-board-smart-microrobots-walk-autonomously" target="_blank">walk autonomously</a>.The kirigami robot is the next step in that evolution, and is the result of longtime collaborations with <a href="https://physics.cornell.edu/paul-mceuen" target="_blank">Paul McEuen</a>, the John A. Newman Professor of Physical Science (A&amp;S); <a href="https://www.mae.cornell.edu/faculty-directory/hadas-kress-gazit" target="_blank">Hadas Kress-Gazit</a>, the Geoffrey S.M. Hedrick Sr. Professor in Cornell Engineering; <a href="https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/faculty-directory/nicholas-l-abbott" target="_blank">Nicholas Abbott</a>, a Tisch University Professor in the Robert F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Cornell Engineering; <a href="https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/faculty-directory/alyssa-b-apsel" target="_blank">Alyssa Apsel</a>,&nbsp;the IBM Professor of Engineering in Cornell Engineering; and <a href="https://www.aep.cornell.edu/faculty-directory/david-anthony-muller" target="_blank">David Muller</a>, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in Cornell Engineering – all co-authors of the paper.In a sense, the origins of the kirigami robot were inspired by “living organisms that can change their shape,” Liu said. “But when people make a robot, once it’s fabricated, it might be able to move some limbs but its overall shape is usually static. So we’ve made a metasheet robot. The ‘meta’ stands for metamaterial, meaning that they’re composed of a lot of building blocks that work together to give the material its mechanical behaviors.”&nbsp;Such metamaterials can often be designed to have properties that are difficult to achieve with natural materials, Wang said.The robot is a hexagonal tiling composed of approximately 100 silicon dioxide panels that are connected through more than 200 actuating hinges, each about 10 nanometers thin. When electrochemically activated via external wires, the hinges form mountain and valley folds and act to splay open and rotate&nbsp;the panels, allowing the robot to change its coverage area and locally expand and contract by up to 40%. Depending which hinges are activated, the robot can adopt various shapes and potentially wrap itself around other objects, and then unfold itself back into a flat sheet. Such is the craftiness of kirigami.“In origami, if you wanted to create three-dimensional shapes, usually you have to hide the excess material inside the 3D object that you’re making,” Cohen said. “But with kirigami, you don’t have to hide anything. Of course, it’s not a contiguous sheet, so there are holes in it, but you don’t have to lose any material. It’s a much more efficient way of generating a three-dimensional shape.”Creating this kind of a machine at the microscale was a long, intricate process, from figuring out how to thread electrical wires through the various hinges to determining the ideal balance of floppiness and rigidity for the robot to make and hold its shape. Among the most significant challenges was devising a way for something with so many moving parts to move itself.“When you have a kirigami sheet, you have hundreds of potential contact points with the ground. And so for the longest time, we were confused about which parts of the robot were contacting the ground to make the robot move,” said postdoctoral researcher and co-author Jason Kim.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzI2MjAyOTQ2NjI4LWZpZy0zLWEuanBnIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Researchers wrapped a millimeter-scale metasheet around a portion of the arm and body of the Statue of Liberty on a U.S. quarter. The metabot changed its shape to fit the contours of the statue.Kim eventually realized that if, instead of using friction, they could make the robot swim through its environment by changing its shape, the forces became much more consistent. Of course, swimming at the microscale is very different than swimming in a pool. At that scale, it is more akin to swimming through a vat of honey.&nbsp;“By changing the robot’s shape so that different parts were closer to the ground at different points in the swimming gait, we could reliably use fluid drag forces to propel the sheet forward,” Kim said.&nbsp;That’s one of the unique things about making microscopic robots, Cohen said. “The physics of locomotion at the microscale is often different from the physics of locomoting robots that are macroscopic.”Cohen’s team is already thinking of the next phase of metasheet technology. They anticipate combining their flexible mechanical structures with electronic controllers to create ultra-responsive “elastronic” materials with properties that would never be possible in nature. Applications could range from reconfigurable micromachines to miniaturized biomedical devices and materials that can respond to impact at nearly the speed of light, rather than the speed of sound.“Because the electronics on each individual building block can harvest energy from light, you can design a material to respond in programmed ways to various stimuli. When prodded, such materials, instead of deforming, could ‘run’ away, or push back with greater force than they experienced,” Cohen said. “We think that 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.”Co-authors also include postdoctoral researcher Itay Griniasty; Michael Reynolds, M.S. ’17, Ph.D. ’21; Michael Cao&nbsp;’14; and doctoral students Himani Sinhmar, Jacob Pelster and Paragkumar Chaudhari.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program (EFRI); the Army Research Office; <a href="https://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Cornell Center for Materials Research</a>, which is supported by the NSF’s MRSEC program; the Air Force Office of Scientific Research; and the <a href="https://www.kicnano.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science</a>. The researchers made use of the <a href="https://www.cnf.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Cornell NanoScale Facility</a>, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, which is supported by the NSF, and the Cornell Institute of Biotechnology.

The kirigami robot is a hexagonal tiling composed of approximately 100 silicon dioxide panels that are connected through more than 200 actuating hinges.

The legacy of microscale robotics at Cornell continues to unfold – and refold and unfold itself again. The latest addition is a robot less than 1 millimeter in size that is printed as a 2D hexagonal “metasheet” but, with a jolt of electricity, morphs into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawls.

Microscale kirigami robot folds into 3D shapes and crawls

Picture this: hundreds of ant-sized robots climb over rubble, under rocks and between debris to inspect the damage of a fallen building before human rescuers explore on-site.&nbsp;Downscaling legged robots to the size of an insect enables access to small spaces that humans and large robots cannot reach. A swarm of small robots can even collaborate like their insect counterparts to haul objects and protect one another. Picotaur, a new robot from the labs of Sarah Bergbreiter and Aaron Johnson is the first of its size able to run, turn, push loads and climb miniature stairs.“This robot has legs that are driven by multiple actuators so it can achieve various locomotion capabilities,” said Sukjun Kim, a recent Ph.D. graduate advised by Bergbreiter. “With multiple gait patterns it can walk like other hexapod robots, similar to how a cockroach moves, but it can also hop from the ground to overcome obstacles.” &nbsp;<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V6PjNExaVbA?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true">&nbsp;</iframe>Video above depicts Picotaur, a 7.9 mm robot, is the first of its size to run, turn, push loads and climb miniature stairs.The 7.9 mm robot was 3D-printed using two-photon polymerization, a process previously successful in building various small-scale robotic systems in the lab such as microbots, microgrippers, microswimmers, and microsensors.“Using this process, we were able to miniaturize the two degree of freedom linkage mechanism that allows Picotaur to clear step heights and easily alternate between walking and jumping,” said Bergbreiter, a professor of mechanical engineering. &nbsp;Kim tested Picotaur’s ability to push loads by creating a miniature soccer field. He found that the robot has enough force to push the ball and then turn, reorient itself, and follow the ball into the net.<blockquote>Now we have this capability to expand the design space from 2D to 3D. We can apply this process to create other small-scale robotic systems for various applications.<cite>Sukjun Kim, Ph.D. Alumni, Mechanical Engineering</cite></blockquote>“Historically, microfabrication technology was limited in manufacturing microscale devices in two-dimensional spaces, like for the semiconductor industry,” said Kim. “But now we have this capability to expand the design space from 2D to 3D. We can apply this process to create other small-scale robotic systems for various applications, for example, microgrippers for grasping and delivering small objects for surgical applications and microscale manufacturing applications.”Because microrobotics is still in early development, there are challenges yet to overcome before we see fully integrated robots in the field. For example, the team hopes to explore adding solar cells to the top of the robot so that it can be powered without tethers.“Now that we see and accept larger robotic systems in the world, I hope that with this work people can imagine small-scale robots working around us and understand that that future is not too far off,” Kim said. &nbsp;“We can start thinking about where micro-robots would be useful and even find applications we haven’t thought of yet.”

Researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have created the first legged robot of its size to run, turn, push loads and climb miniature stairs.

It's an ant... it's a robot... it's Picotaur! The unrivaled micro robot

A tiny battery designed by MIT engineers could enable the deployment of cell-sized, autonomous robots for drug delivery within in the human body, as well as other applications such as locating leaks in gas pipelines.The new battery, which is 0.1 millimeters long and 0.002 millimeters&nbsp;thick — roughly the thickness of a human hair — can capture oxygen from air and use it to oxidize zinc, creating a current of up to 1 volt. That is enough to power a small circuit, sensor, or actuator, the researchers showed.“We think this is going to be very enabling for robotics,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study. “We’re building robotic functions onto the battery and starting to put these components together into devices.”Ge Zhang PhD ’22 and Sungyun Yang, an MIT graduate student,&nbsp;are the lead author of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.ade4642" target="_blank">paper</a>, which appears in&nbsp;Science Robotics.<h2>Powered by batteries</h2>For several years, Strano’s lab has been working on&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2018/cell-sized-robots-sense-their-environment-0723" target="_blank">tiny robots</a> that can sense and respond to stimuli in their environment. One of the major challenges in developing such tiny robots is making sure that they have enough power.Other researchers have shown that they can power microscale devices using solar power, but the limitation to that approach is that the robots must have a laser or another light source pointed at them at all times. Such devices are known as “marionettes” because they are controlled by an external power source. Putting a power source such as a battery inside these tiny devices could free them to roam much farther.“The marionette systems don’t really need a battery because they’re getting all the energy they need from outside,” Strano says. “But if you want a small robot to be able to get into spaces that you couldn’t access otherwise, it needs to have a greater level of autonomy. A battery is essential for something that’s not going to be tethered to the outside world.”To create robots that could become more autonomous, Strano’s lab decided to use a type of battery known as a zinc-air battery. These batteries, which have a longer lifespan than many other types of batteries due to their high energy density, are often used in hearing aids.The battery that they designed consists of a zinc electrode connected to a platinum electrode, embedded into a strip of a polymer called SU-8, which is commonly used for microelectronics. When these electrodes interact with oxygen molecules from the air, the zinc becomes oxidized and releases electrons that flow to the platinum electrode, creating a current.In this study, the researchers showed that this battery could provide enough energy to power an actuator — in this case, a robotic arm that can be raised and lowered. The battery could also power a memristor, an electrical component that can store memories of events by changing its electrical resistance, and a clock circuit, which allows robotic devices to keep track of time.The battery also provides enough power to run two different types of sensors that change their electrical resistance when they encounter chemicals in the environment. One of the sensors is made from atomically thin molybdenum disulfide and the other from carbon nanotubes.“We’re making the basic building blocks in order to build up functions at the cellular level,” Strano says.<h2>Robotic swarms</h2>In this study, the researchers used a wire to connect their battery to an external device, but in future work they plan to build robots in which the battery is incorporated into a device.“This is going to form the core of a lot of our robotic efforts,” Strano says. “You can build a robot around an energy source, sort of like you can build an electric car around the battery.”One of those efforts revolves around designing tiny robots that could be injected into the human body, where they could seek out a target site and then release a drug such as insulin. For use in the human body, the researchers envision that the devices would be made of biocompatible materials that would break apart once they were no longer needed.The researchers are also working on increasing the voltage of the battery, which may enable additional applications.

The zinc-air battery is 0.1 millimeters long and 0.02 millimeters thick. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

These zinc-air batteries, smaller than a grain of sand, could help miniscule robots sense and respond to their environment.

Engineers design tiny batteries for powering cell-sized robots

Imagine a robot small enough to fit on a U.S. penny. Or even small enough to rest on Lincoln&rsquo;s chest. It sounds preposterous enough. Now, imagine a robot small enough to rest on the chest of Lincoln &ndash; not the Lincoln whose head decorates the front side of the penny, but the even tinier version of him on the back.&nbsp;Before it was changed to a Union Shield, the tail side of pennies contained the Lincoln Memorial, including a miniscule representation of the seated Lincoln statue that rests inside. Barely visible to the naked eye, this miniature Lincoln is on the order of a few hundred micrometers wide. As incredible as it sounds, this is the scale of robots being built by Professor <a href="https://physics.cornell.edu/itai-cohen" target="_blank">Itai Cohen</a> and his lab at Cornell University. On February 22, Cohen shared several of his lab&rsquo;s cutting-edge technologies with an audience in Duke&rsquo;s Schiciano Auditorium.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1678193311226-IMG_4967-1-1024x1006.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Dr. Itai Cohen from Cornell University begins his presentation by demonstrating the scale of the microrobots being developed by his lab.&nbsp;To begin, Cohen describes the challenge of building robots as consisting of two distinct parts: the brain of the robot, and the brawn. The brain refers to the microchip, and the brawn refers to the &ldquo;legs,&rdquo; or actuating limbs of the robot. Between these two, the brain &ndash; believe it or not &ndash; is the easy part. As Cohen explains, &ldquo;fifty years of Moore&rsquo;s Law has solved this problem.&rdquo; (In 1965, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gordon-Moore" target="_blank">Gordon Moore</a> theorized that roughly every two years, the number of transistors able to fit on microchips will double, suggesting that computational progress will become exponentially more efficient over time.) We now possess the ability to create ridiculously small microcircuits that fit on the footprint of a few micrometers. The brawn, on the other hand, is a major challenge.&nbsp;This is where Cohen and his lab come in. Their idea was to use standard fabrication tools used by the semiconductor industry to build the chips, and then build the robot around the chip by folding&nbsp;the robot into the 3D shape they desired. Think origami, but at the microscopic scale.&nbsp;Like any good origami artist, the researchers at the Cohen lab recognized that it all starts with the paper. Using the unique tools at the <a href="https://www.cnf.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Cornell Nanoscale Facility</a>, the Cohen team created the world&rsquo;s thinnest paper, including one made out of a single sheet of graphene. To clarify, that&rsquo;s a single atom thickness.Next, it came to the folding. &nbsp;As Cohen describes, there&rsquo;s really two main options. The first is to shrink down the origami artist to the microscopic level. He concedes that science doesn&rsquo;t know how to do that quite yet. Alas, the second strategy is to have the paper fold itself. (I will admit that as an uneducated listener, option number two sounds about as absurd as the first one.) Regardless, this turns out to be the more reasonable option.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1678193334884-microrobo-1.png" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Countless different iterations of microrobots can be fabricated using the origami folding technique.&nbsp;The basic process works like this: a seven nanometer thick platinum layer is coated on one side with an inert material. When put in a solution and voltage applied, ions that are dissociated in the solvent will absorb onto the platinum surface. When this happens, a stress is created that bends the device. Reversing the voltage drives away the ions and unbends the device. Applying stiff elements to certain regions restricts the bending to occur only in desired locations. Devices about the thickness of a hair diameter can be created (folded and unfolded) using this method. &nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1678193356157-microrobo-2.png" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">This microscopic origami duck developed by the Cohen Lab graced the covered of Science Robotics in March 2021.&nbsp;As incredible as this is, there is still one defect: it requires a wire to an external power source that attaches onto the device. To solve this problem, the Cohen lab uses photovoltaics (mini solar panels) that attach directly onto the device itself. When light is shined on the photovoltaic (via sunlight or lasers), it moves the limb. With this advance and some continuous tweaking, the Cohen lab was able to develop the world&rsquo;s smallest walking robot. &nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1678193376712-microrobo-4.png" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">At just 40 microns by 70 microns by 2 microns thick, the smallest walking microrobot in the world is able to fold itself up and walk off the page.&nbsp;The Cohen Lab also achieved &ldquo;BroBot&rdquo; &ndash; a microrobot that &ldquo;flexes his muscles&rdquo; when light is shined on the front photovoltaics and truly &ldquo;looks like he belongs on a beach somewhere.&rdquo;&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1678193402659-microrobo-3.png" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The &ldquo;BroBot,&rdquo; complete with &ldquo;chest hair,&rdquo; was one of the earlier versions of the robot that eventually was refined into the world record-winning microrobot.&nbsp;The Cohen Lab successfully eliminated the need for any external wire, but there was still more left to be desired. These robots, including &ldquo;BroBot&rdquo; and the Guinness World Record-winning microrobot, still required lasers to activate the limbs. In this sense, as Cohen explains, the robots were &ldquo;still just marionettes&rdquo; being controlled by &ldquo;strings&rdquo; in the form of laser pulses.To go beyond this, the Cohen Lab began working with a commercial foundry, <a href="https://www.xfab.com/" target="_blank">X-Fab</a>, to create microchips that would act as a brain that could coordinate the limb movements. In this way, the robots would be able to move on their own, without using lasers pointed at specific photovoltaics. Cohen describes this moment as &ldquo;cutting the strings on the marionette, and bringing Pinocchio to life.&rdquo;This is the final key step in the development of Ant Bot: a microrobot that moves all on its own. It uses a hexapod gate, meaning a tripod on each side. All that has to be done is placing the robot in sunlight, and the brain does the rest of the coordination.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1678193425045-microrobo-5.png" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">&ldquo;Ant Bot,&rdquo; one of the most advanced of all microrobots to come out of the Cohen Lab, is able to move autonomously, without the aid of lasers.&nbsp;The potential for these kinds of microrobots is nearly limitless. As Cohen emphasizes, the application for robots at the microscale is &ldquo;basically anything you can imagine doing at the macroscale.&rdquo; Cleaning surfaces, transporting cargo, building components. Perhaps conducting microsurgeries, or exploring new worlds that appear inaccessible. One particularly promising application is a robot that mimics that movement of cilia &ndash; the microscopic cellular hair responsible for countless locomotion and sensory functions in the body.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cilia-are-minuscule-wonders-and-scientists-are-finally-figuring-out-how-to-mimic-them/" target="_blank">A cilia-covered chip</a> could become the basis of new portable diagnostic devices, enabling field testing that would be much easier, cheaper, and more efficient.The researchers at the Cohen Lab envision a possible future where microscopic robots are used in swarms to restructure blood vessels, or probe large swathes of the human brain in a new form of healthcare based on quantum materials.&nbsp;Until now, few would have imagined that the ancient art of origami would predict and enable technology that could transform the future of medicine and accelerate the exploration of the universe.

Imagine a robot small enough to fit on a U.S. penny. Or even small enough to rest on Lincoln’s chest. It sounds preposterous enough. Now, imagine a robot small enough to rest on the chest of Lincoln – not the Lincoln whose head decorates the front side of the penny, but the even tinier version of him on the back. 

Origami Robots: How Technology Moves at the Micro Level

Imagine a world with precision medicine, where a swarm of microrobots delivers a payload of medicine directly to ailing cells. Or one where aerial or marine drones can collectively survey an area while exchanging minimal information about their location.One early step towards realizing such technologies is being able to simultaneously simulate swarming behaviors and synchronized timing &ndash; behaviors found in slime molds, sperm and fireflies, for example.In 2014, Cornell researchers first introduced a simple model of swarmalators &ndash; short for &lsquo;swarming oscillator&rsquo; &ndash; where particles self-organize to synchronize in both time and space. In the study, &quot;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36563-4" target="_blank">Diverse Behaviors in Non-uniform Chiral and Non-chiral Swarmalators</a>,&rdquo; which published Feb. 20 in the journal Nature Communications, they expanded this model to make it more useful for engineering microrobots, better understand existing, observed biological behaviors, and for theoreticians to experiment in this field.&ldquo;We wanted a simple mathematical model that can lay the foundation for swarmalators in general, something that captures all of the complex emergent phenomena we see in natural and engineered swarms,&rdquo; said Kirstin Petersen, the paper&rsquo;s senior author, assistant professor and an Aref and Manon Lahham Faculty Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Cornell Engineering.Steven Ceron, Ph.D. &lsquo;22, a former graduate student in Petersen&rsquo;s lab, is the paper&rsquo;s first author, and Kevin O&rsquo;Keeffe Ph.D. &lsquo;17, a former graduate student in applied mathematics, is a co-author. &nbsp; &nbsp;O&rsquo;Keeffe compared this model to the largest doll in a set of Russian dolls, with each smaller doll representing models capable of simulating more refined behaviors. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve tried to come up with a model that is as simple as possible in the hope of capturing generic phenomena,&rdquo; he said.The researchers simplified their model to work with just four mathematical constants linked together to produce diverse emergent behaviors, such as aggregation, dispersion, vortices, traveling waves, and bouncing clusters.The new model can mimic particles in nature that each operate at different natural frequencies, as some objects move slower and faster around a trajectory than others. The researchers also added chirality, or the ability for a particle to move in a circle, because many examples in nature, such as sperm, swim in circles and in vortices. And particles in the model exhibit local coupling, so they sense and respond only to their local neighbors.At its core, the model combines swarming behaviors with synchronization in time. Examples of swarming from nature include flocking birds or herds of stampeding buffalo, where individuals move together as a group. Synchronized timing can be found in cardiac pacemaker cells that fire an electric impulse in unison, shocking the heart into regular repeated beats. Sperm represent both phenomena together, as they can beat their tails in unison while swimming as a group. Fireflies are also known to fly in swarms while flashing in synchrony.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what makes them swarmalators, because there&rsquo;s two of the self-organizing forces going on at the same time,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Keeffe said.The model doesn&#39;t try to model a specific real world swarmalator, such as sperm, robotic drones, or magnetic domain walls. Rather, it tries to model the behavior common to all those systems &shy;&ndash; it aims for generality, rather than specificity. As an example, the model was shown to reproduce behaviors found in microbial slime molds, which can operate as individual cells, but when starved will aggregate into a slug and eventually a fruiting body.&ldquo;These very simple coupled mechanisms can potentially be implemented on swarms of tiny robots with very limited power, computational and memory resources, which in spite of their individual simplicity can work together to produce the complex swarming behaviors we predict in our model,&rdquo; Petersen said.&nbsp;One future application could be for precision medicine, where tiny magnetized insoluble particles could swarm and be synchronized in relation to each other and then controlled to deliver a payload to tissues in need of a therapy, O&rsquo;Keeffe said.

Kirstin Petersen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and colleagues, have developed a simple model called a swarmalator, where particles self-organize to synchronize in both time and space. Credit: Noël Heaney/Cornell University

Imagine a world with precision medicine, where a swarm of microrobots delivers a payload of medicine directly to ailing cells. Or one where aerial or marine drones can collectively survey an area while exchanging minimal information about their location.

'Swarmalators' better envision synchronized microbots

A new study led by <a href="https://mechse.illinois.edu/" id="isPasted" target="_blank">mechanical science and engineering</a> professor <a href="https://mechse.illinois.edu/people/profile/tawfick" target="_blank">Sameh Tawfick</a> demonstrates a series of click beetle-sized robots small enough to fit into tight spaces, powerful enough to maneuver over obstacles and fast enough to match an insect&rsquo;s rapid escape time.&nbsp;The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Princeton University have studied click beetle anatomy, mechanics and evolution over the past decade.&nbsp;<a href="https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/589930360" target="_blank">A 2020 study</a> found that snap buckling &ndash; the rapid release of elastic energy &ndash; of a coiled muscle within a click beetle&rsquo;s thorax is triggered to allow them to propel themselves in the air many times their body length, as a means of righting themselves if flipped onto their backs.&ldquo;One of the grand challenges of small-scale robotics is finding a design that is small, yet powerful enough to move around obstacles or quickly escape dangerous settings,&rdquo; Tawfick said.In the new study, Tawfick and his team used tiny <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax7304" target="_blank">coiled actuators</a> &ndash; analogous to animal muscles &ndash; that pull on a beam-shaped mechanism, causing it to slowly buckle and store elastic energy until it is spontaneously released and amplified, propelling the robots upward.<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3udLRU9_qog?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" style="width: 765px; height: 509px;"></iframe>&ldquo;This process, called a dynamic buckling cascade, is simple compared to the anatomy of a click beetle,&rdquo; Tawfick said. &ldquo;However, simple is good in this case because it allows us to work and fabricate parts at this small scale.&rdquo;Guided by biological evolution and mathematical models, the team built and tested four device variations, landing on two configurations that can successfully jump without manual intervention.&ldquo;Moving forward, we do not have a set approach on the exact design of the next generation of these robots, but this study plants a seed in the evolution of this technology &ndash; a process similar to biologic evolution,&rdquo; Tawfick said.The team envisions these robots accessing tight spaces to help perform maintenance on large machines like turbines and jet engines, for example, by taking pictures to identify problems.&ldquo;We also imagine insect-scale robots being useful in modern agriculture,&rdquo; Tawfick said. &ldquo;Scientists and farmers currently use drones and rovers to monitor crops, but sometimes researchers need a sensor to touch a plant or to capture a photograph of a very small-scale feature. Insect-scale robots can do that.&rdquo;Researchers from the University of Birmingham, UK; Oxford University; and the University of Texas at Dallas also participated in this research.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Toyota Research Institute North America, the National Science Foundation and The Royal Society supported this study.

Mechanical science and engineering professor Sameh Tawfick led a new study introducing click beetle-sized robots small enough to fit into tight spaces, powerful enough to maneuver over obstacles and fast enough to match an insect’s rapid escape time. Graphic by Michael Vincent

Researchers have made a significant leap forward in developing insect-sized jumping robots capable of performing tasks in the small spaces often found in mechanical, agricultural and search-and-rescue settings.  

Click beetle-inspired robots jump using elastic energy

First, they walked. Then, they saw the light. Now, miniature biological robots have gained a new trick: remote control.The hybrid &ldquo;eBiobots&rdquo; are the first to combine soft materials, living muscle and microelectronics, said researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and collaborating institutions. They described their centimeter-scale biological machines in the journal Science Robotics.&ldquo;Integrating microelectronics allows the merger of the biological world and the electronics world, both with many advantages of their own, to now produce these electronic biobots and machines that could be useful for many medical, sensing and environmental applications in the future,&rdquo; said study co-leader <a href="https://bioengineering.illinois.edu/people/rbashir" target="_blank">Rashid Bashir</a>, an Illinois professor of <a href="https://bioengineering.illinois.edu/" target="_blank">bioengineering</a> and dean of the <a href="https://grainger.illinois.edu/" target="_blank">Grainger College of Engineering</a>.Bashir&rsquo;s group has pioneered the development of biobots, small biological robots powered by mouse muscle tissue grown on a soft 3D-printed polymer skeleton. They demonstrated walking biobots in 2012 and light-activated biobots in 2016. The light activation gave the researchers some control, but practical applications were limited by the question of how to deliver the light pulses to the biobots outside of a lab setting.The answer to that question came from Northwestern University professor <a href="https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/directory/profiles/rogers-john.html" target="_blank">John A. Rogers</a>, a pioneer in flexible bioelectronics, whose team helped integrate tiny wireless microelectronics and battery-free micro-LEDs. This allowed the researchers to remotely control the eBiobots.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1674080849362-210340.jpg" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Remote control steering allows the eBiobots to maneuver around obstacles, as shown in this composite image of a bipedal robot traversing a maze. Image courtesy of Yongdeok Kim<figcaption>&ldquo;This unusual combination of technology and biology opens up vast opportunities in creating self-healing, learning, evolving, communicating and self-organizing engineered systems. We feel that it&rsquo;s a very fertile ground for future research with specific potential applications in biomedicine and environmental monitoring,&rdquo; said Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering, biomedical engineering and neurological surgery at Northwestern University and director of the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics.</figcaption>To give the biobots the freedom of movement required for practical applications, the researchers set out to eliminate bulky batteries and tethering wires. &nbsp; The eBiobots use a receiver coil to harvest power and provide a regulated output voltage to power the micro-LEDs, said co-first author Zhengwei Li, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Houston.The researchers can send a wireless signal to the eBiobots that prompts the LEDs to pulse. The LEDs stimulate the light-sensitive engineered muscle to contract, moving the polymer legs so that the machines &ldquo;walk.&rdquo; The micro-LEDs are so targeted that they can activate specific portions of muscle, making the eBiobot turn in a desired direction.&nbsp;<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MI__Nm6EzvA?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>The researchers used computational modeling to optimize the eBiobot design and component integration for robustness, speed and maneuverability. Illinois professor of mechanical sciences and engineering <a href="https://mechse.illinois.edu/people/profile/mgazzola" id="isPasted" target="_blank">Mattia Gazzola</a> led the simulation and design of the eBiobots. The iterative design and additive 3D printing of the scaffolds allowed for rapid cycles of experiments and performance improvement, said Gazzola and co-first author Xiaotian Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher in Gazzola&rsquo;s lab.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1674080946073-210347.jpg" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The eBiobots are the first wireless bio-hybrid machines, combining biological tissue, microelectronics and 3D-printed soft polymers. Image courtesy of Yongdeok KimThe design allows for possible future integration of additional microelectronics, such as chemical and biological sensors, or 3D-printed scaffold parts for functions like pushing or transporting things that the biobots encounter, said co-first author Youngdeok Kim, who completed the work as a graduate student at Illinois.The integration of electronic sensors or biological neurons would allow the eBiobots to sense and respond to toxins in the environment, biomarkers for disease and more possibilities, the researchers said.&ldquo;In developing a first-ever hybrid bioelectronic robot, we are opening the door for a new paradigm of applications for health care innovation, such as in-situ biopsies and analysis, minimum invasive surgery or even cancer detection within the human body,&rdquo; Li said.The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health supported this work.

Remotely controlled miniature biological robots have many potential applications in medicine, sensing and environmental monitoring.   Image courtesy of Yongdeok Kim

The hybrid “eBiobots” are the first to combine soft materials, living muscle and microelectronics, said researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and collaborating institutions. They described their centimeter-scale biological machines in the journal Science Robotics.

Microelectronics give researchers a remote control for biological robots

Understanding the biology behind an embryo&rsquo;s development is crucial not only from a basic science perspective, but also from a medical one. However, we are in dire need for tools that can help us systematically and explore embryonic development.&ldquo;The original experimental approach in embryology is microsurgery,&rdquo; says Andy Oates at EPFL&rsquo;s School of Life Sciences. &ldquo;But it used to be done with a very simple microscope and very simple tools like cactus spines or sharpened pieces of wire. Another problem is that we naturally have a tremor in our hands, which makes microsurgery difficult for some people. It takes years of training, and only some people can do it, so the throughput is very low.&rdquo;<h2>Combining robotics and biology</h2>In an effort to address the current limitations of microsurgery techniques, Oates joined forces with Professor Selman Sakar at the School of Engineering, an expert in microtechnology and small-scale robotics. &ldquo;<a href="https://www.epfl.ch/labs/microbs/" target="_blank">In my laboratory</a>, we have been building robotic tools for tissue micro-manipulation,&rdquo; says Sakar. &ldquo;Together with Andy [Oates], we asked whether we could use some of these tools to facilitate research in embryology in general, to make it more reliable and give it a higher throughput, and in this case to specifically understand the biomechanics of how tissue morphogenesis [the shaping and structuring of a developing tissue] in zebrafish works.&rdquo;The two professors received funding for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epfl.ch/schools/sv/iphd-program/" target="_blank">an iPhD</a>, a specialized doctoral fellowship at EPFL that combines life science research with another discipline. The iPhD candidate, Ece &Ouml;zel&ccedil;i, trained on both robotics and developmental biology.&ldquo;I think it&#39;s a great program, because, honestly, I would otherwise never have done such interdisciplinary research,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;It was quite intense; it&#39;s not like you only focus on a single discipline. I learned quite a lot from both fields, and I think it&#39;s a really great opportunity if you want to acquire a unique skill set.&rdquo;<blockquote>...our research enables us to reverse engineer the developmental programs for tissue engineering<footer>Selman Sakar</footer></blockquote><h2>A new robot-assisted platform</h2>Publishing in&nbsp;Nature Communications, the researchers describe the new platform&rsquo;s role as &ldquo;robot-assisted tissue micromanipulation&rdquo;. It is compact (200 x 100 x 70 mm3), high-resolution (4 nm position and 25 &mu;&deg; rotation), and dexterous, with several degrees of freedom. The tool can position itself automatically without any manual intervention and do so with high, reproducible stability.The researchers drew inspiration from related microsurgery systems from ophthalmology and neurology, which are also quite compact and precise, and also rely on microscopes, even though their target objects are often larger than an embryo.The scientists tested the platform&rsquo;s capabilities by using it to study body axis elongation of the zebrafish embryo. &ldquo;<a href="https://www.epfl.ch/labs/oateslab/" target="_blank">Our lab</a> focuses on how the backbone forms, and part of that is how the body elongates, grows out, and segments itself,&rdquo; says Oates. &ldquo;We use the zebrafish embryo as a model, and the idea is to look at the contribution of different parts of the embryo to the process of development. In this case, we look at how embryos elongate themselves and how they segment themselves, and how those two processes interact. Our approach is to physically separate elongation and segmentation by microsurgery, and see how each operates when the other process isn&rsquo;t there.&rdquo;<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tfQT2B6iJ58?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>Using the platform, &Ouml;zel&ccedil;i and her colleagues were able to target precise regions of the zebrafish embryo. The robot-assisted microsurgery allowed them to remove the embryo&rsquo;s elongating tail and grow it separately &ndash; a process called explanting, which is often used in embryological research.<blockquote>Our approach is to physically separate elongation and segmentation by microsurgery, and see how each operates when the other process isn&rsquo;t there.<footer>Andy Oates</footer></blockquote>The study revealed a surprising behavior of the embryo&rsquo;s notochord, which acts as an early &ldquo;backbone&rdquo; for the larva when it begins to swim. &ldquo;The notochord pushes so hard inside the tail that it can buckle itself,&rdquo; says Oates. &ldquo;Normally the embryo would elongate uniaxially, but once we physically stopped the process, the notochord kept elongating, generating compressive stresses that led to buckling.&rdquo;<h2>Biology for advancing engineering &ndash; and vice-versa</h2>&ldquo;In addition to embryology, our research enables us to reverse engineer the developmental programs for tissue engineering,&rdquo; says Sakar. &ldquo;If we understand how forces lead to tissue morphogenesis, we could replicate these conditions with engineered tissues&nbsp;in vitro. Like biochemical factors, providing the right mechanical environment and signals is critical for the tissues to develop and function properly.&ldquo;We are also motivated to create biological machines that are designed to perform specific engineering tasks. For example, we would like to engineer mini-hearts that serve as organic pumps with much simpler architecture compared to the real heart. To this end, robot-assisted microsurgery provides not only the construction principles, but also provides the means to manufacture machines from the living matter through&nbsp;<a href="https://actu.epfl.ch/news/tissue-engineering-using-mechanobiology-and-roboti/" target="_blank">mechanically-guided self-assembly</a>.&rdquo;But will such platforms gain broader use? &ldquo;I envision that such robotic micromanipulation tools will become instrumental in every life science laboratory,&rdquo; says Sakar. &ldquo;Regardless of the chosen biological model system, ranging from single cells to organisms, robotics and automation can empower the scientists.&rdquo;&ldquo;Medical robots are quite advanced,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;It is time to bring the unique capabilities of surgical robotics to the biomedical research community. Handling biological samples in an automated fashion will increase the throughput, precision, and repeatability of data acquisition while democratizing procedures that require fine skills and years of experience. Combined with intelligent imaging and microscopy, the possibilities are endless.&rdquo;<hr>ReferencesEce &Ouml;zel&ccedil;i, Erik Mailand, Matthias Rüegg, Andrew C. Oates, Mahmut Selman Sakar. Deconstructing body axis morphogenesis in zebrafish embryos using robot-assisted tissue micromanipulation. Nature Communications 24 December 2022. DOI:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35632-4" rel="noopener" target="_blank">10.1038/s41467-022-35632-4</a>

Combining biology and robotics, scientists at EPFL have built a robotic microsurgery platform that can perform high-precision, micrometer-resolution dissections to advance our understanding of how the vertebrate body forms during embryonic development.

A robotic microsurgeon reveals how embryos grow

A collaborative effort has installed electronic &ldquo;brains&rdquo; on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size &ndash; smaller than an ant&rsquo;s head &ndash; so that they can walk autonomously without&nbsp;being externally controlled.<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bCjnekohBAY?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" style="width: 768px; height: 435px;"></iframe>Cornell researchers installed electronic &ldquo;brains&rdquo; on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size, so the tiny bots can walk autonomously without being externally controlled. No&euml;l Heaney/Cornell University&nbsp;While Cornell researchers and others have previously developed microscopic machines that can crawl, swim, <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/08/laser-jolts-microscopic-electronic-robots-motion" target="_blank">walk</a> and fold themselves up, there were always &ldquo;strings&rdquo; attached; to generate motion, wires were used to provide electrical current or laser beams had to be focused directly onto specific locations on the robots.&nbsp;&ldquo;Before, we literally had to manipulate these &lsquo;strings&rsquo; in order to get any kind of response from the robot,&rdquo; said <a href="http://physics.cornell.edu/itai-cohen" target="_blank">Itai Cohen</a>, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences. &ldquo;But now that we have these brains on board, it&rsquo;s like taking the strings off the marionette. It&rsquo;s like when&nbsp;Pinocchio&nbsp;gains consciousness.&rdquo;The innovation sets the stage for a new generation of microscopic devices that can track bacteria, sniff out chemicals, destroy pollutants, conduct microsurgery and scrub the plaque out of arteries.The team&rsquo;s paper, &ldquo;<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abq2296" target="_blank">Microscopic Robots with Onboard Digital Control</a>,&rdquo; published Sept. 21 in Science Robotics. The lead author is postdoctoral researcher Michael Reynolds, M.S. &lsquo;17, Ph.D. &lsquo;21.The project brought together researchers from the labs of Cohen, <a href="https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/faculty-directory/alyosha-christopher-molnar" target="_blank">Alyosha Molnar</a>, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in Cornell Engineering; and <a href="https://physics.cornell.edu/paul-mceuen" target="_blank">Paul McEuen</a>, the John A. Newman Professor of Physical Science (A&amp;S), all co-senior authors on the paper.The &ldquo;brain&rdquo; in the new robots is a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) clock circuit that contains a thousand transistors, plus an array of diodes, resistors and capacitors. The integrated CMOS circuit generates a signal that produces a series of phase-shifted square wave frequencies that in turn set the gait of the robot. The robot legs are platinum-based actuators. Both the circuit and the legs are powered by photovoltaics.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1663949751084-cmos-sheet-a_0.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Alejandro Cortese, Ph.D. &rsquo;19 displays a silicon-on-insulator wafer that contains finished CMOS &ldquo;brains.&rdquo;&nbsp;&ldquo;In some sense, the electronics are very basic. This clock circuit is not a leap forward in the ability of circuits,&rdquo; Cohen said. &ldquo;But all of the electronics have to be designed to be very low power, so that we didn&rsquo;t have to put humungous photovoltaics to power the circuit.&rdquo;The low-power electronics were made possible by the&nbsp;<a href="https://molnargroup.ece.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Molnar Group</a>&rsquo;s research. Former postdoctoral researcher Alejandro Cortese, Ph.D. &lsquo;19, worked with Reynolds and designed the CMOS brain, which was then built by a commercial foundry, XFAB.The finished circuits arrived on 8-inch silicon-on-insulator wafers. At 15 microns tall, each robot brain &ndash; essentially also the robot&rsquo;s body &ndash; was a &ldquo;mountain&rdquo; compared to the electronics that normally fit on a flat wafer, Reynolds said. He worked with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnf.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility</a> (CNF) to develop an intricate process using 13 layers of photolithography to etch the brains loose into an aqueous solution and pattern the actuators to make the legs.&ldquo;One of the key parts that enables this is that we&rsquo;re using microscale actuators that can be controlled by low voltages and currents,&rdquo; said Cortese, who is CEO of OWiC Technologies, a company he founded with McEuen and Molnar to commercialize optical wireless integrated circuits for microsensors. &ldquo;This is really the first time that we showed that yes, you can integrate that directly into a CMOS process and have all of those legs be directly controlled by effectively one circuit.&rdquo;The team created three robots to demonstrate the CMOS integration: a two-legged Purcell bot, named in tribute to physicist Edward Purcell, who proposed a similarly simple model to explain the swimming motions of microorganisms; a more complicated six-legged antbot, which walks with an alternating tripod gait, like that of an insect; and a four-legged dogbot that can vary the speed with which it walks thanks to a modified circuit that receives commands via laser pulse.&ldquo;Eventually, the ability to communicate a command will allow us to give the robot instructions, and the internal brain will figure out how to carry them out,&rdquo; Cohen said. &ldquo;Then we&rsquo;re having a conversation with the robot. The robot might tell us something about its environment, and then we might react by telling it, &lsquo;OK, go over there and try to suss out what&rsquo;s happening.&rsquo;&rdquo;The new robots are approximately 10,000 times smaller than macroscale robots that feature onboard CMOS electronics, and they can walk at speeds faster than 10 micrometers per second.The fabrication process that Reynolds designed, basically customizing foundry-built electronics, has resulted in a platform that can enable other researchers to outfit microscopic robots with their own apps &ndash; from chemical detectors to photovoltaic &ldquo;eyes&rdquo; that help robots navigate by sensing changes in light.&ldquo;What this lets you imagine is really complex, highly functional microscopic robots that have a high degree of programmability, integrated with not only actuators, but also sensors,&rdquo; Reynolds said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited about the applications in medicine &ndash; something that could move around in tissue and identify good cells and kill bad cells &ndash; and in environmental remediation, like if you had a robot that knew how to break down pollutants or sense a dangerous chemical and get rid of it.&rdquo;In May, the team integrated their CMOS clock circuits into&nbsp;<a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/05/artificial-cilia-could-someday-power-diagnostic-devices" target="_blank">artificial cilia</a> that were also built with platinum-based, electrically-powered actuators, to manipulate the movement of fluids.&ldquo;The real fun part is, just like we never really knew what the iPhone was going to be about until we sent it out into the world, what we&rsquo;re hoping is that now that we&rsquo;ve shown the recipe for linking CMOS electronics to robotic actuating limbs, we can unleash this and have people design low-power microchips that can do all sorts of things,&rdquo; Cohen said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the idea of sending it out into the ether and letting people&rsquo;s imaginations run wild.&rdquo;Co-authors include former postdoctoral researcher Marc Miskin; postdoctoral researchers Qingkun Liu and Sunwoo Lee; doctoral students Wei Wang, Samantha Norris; and Zhangqi (Jackie) Zheng &lsquo;24.

A collaborative effort has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size – smaller than an ant’s head – so that they can walk autonomously without being externally controlled.

Brains on board: Smart microrobots walk autonomously

Another fascinating month for robotics. Researchers are the highlight of the month. Through their work, we are pushing the boundaries of self-awareness, complex structure and even the limits of life and death.&nbsp;Spoooky indeed.&nbsp;Take a seat and join us in this quick review of robotics news.And don&#39;t forget that you can also share your story. We would love to feature it in our next blog. Just email us at <a href="mailto:robotics.community@canonical.com" target="_blank">robotics.community@canonical.com</a><ul><li>This blog has also been <a href="http://ubuntu.com/blog/the-state-of-robotics-august-2022?utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">posted in Ubuntu blogs</a>.&nbsp;</li></ul><h2 dir="ltr">Security for robotics</h2><h3 dir="ltr">Vulnerability in cute, smart Enabot Ebo Air robot found and fixed</h3>The <a href="https://na.enabot.com/ebo/AIR" target="_blank">Enabot Ebo Air</a> is a friendly smart home robot, designed to keep the family company. It allows you to interact with your family at home while you&rsquo;re away. It can take photos and videos as well as recognise faces, and you can steer it around the house via Wi-Fi. Recently, the security assessment firm Modux was asked to evaluate the security of the robot, and <a href="https://www.modux.co.uk/post/serious-security-issues-uncovered-with-the-enabot-smart-robot" target="_blank">found two important vulnerabilities</a>. Modux disclosed the issues to the manufacturer, who has since addressed the risks and released a fix.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU1ODQzODQ3LXRlc3QgMS53ZWJwIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The first issue found was the use of a shared password for the system administrator (root) account. The Enabot Ebo Air robot came pre-configured with a default system administrator password, which was weak and shared across all devices. An attacker could have used this to connect via SSH (secure shell), and gain full administrative permissions. The recommendation was to disable SSH functionality, which the manufacturer did.&nbsp;The second bug was a missing secure-delete functionality, which could potentially disclose information from the previous owner if the robot was resold. The robot did not effectively perform a secure deletion of data when a factory reset was initiated, leaving behind artefacts from previous uses of the device, including cleartext Wi-Fi passwords and session tokens from the previous owner. For this, the recommendation was to use a secure deletion functionality instead, overwriting all sensitive data multiple times.An attacker could have used these vulnerabilities to move the robot, access the camera, record video, speak through the microphone, among other tasks, effectively using it as a surveillance device. This event highlights the importance of security awareness and thorough testing, as robots continue to serve and accompany us more and more in our daily lives. <h2 dir="ltr">Amazon acquisition of iRobot - implications beyond data</h2>Every time Amazon launches or acquires a new company (especially one developing a device) the whole internet starts talking about the data and privacy implications. Yes, certainly data is important for Amazon. But that is not the whole story. Today I want to talk about the impact this acquisition has on investors and how this could boost the market.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU1ODg4NDM2LXRlc3QyLndlYnAiLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Funding a robotics venture is not easy. Between March 2020 and March 2021, robotics companies raised only 8% in capital compared to AI companies. AI-focused startups raised a total of $73.4 billion while robotics startups raised $6.3 billion. This is a paltry sum in comparison, especially when we saw an increasing need for robotics in several industries (due to COVID). &nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU1OTA4ODQxLXRlc3QzLndlYnAiLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">There are many reasons behind this. One of those, and the most important one, is the increased risk perception from investors. Robotics development is expensive and takes time.&nbsp;But moves like Amazon&rsquo;s show something to investors: a profitable exit. Amazon will acquire iRobot for $61 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.7 billion. A success story is always needed to push investment, and this certainly makes one.&nbsp;This is not an isolated event. It comes after 2 years of really interesting acquisitions. Take <a href="https://www.zebra.com/gb/en/about-zebra/newsroom/press-releases/2021/zebra-technologies-to-acquire-fetch-robotics.html" target="_blank">Zebra&#39;s acquisition of Fetch</a>, or <a href="https://www.deere.com/en/news/all-news/2021aug5-bear-flag-robotics/" target="_blank">John Deere&#39;s acquisitions of ROS-based startups</a>. Investors are aware, now more than ever, that while the risk is high, the profit/ROI could be as well. Moves like <a href="https://ubuntu.com/blog/the-state-of-robotics-september-2021" target="_blank">Amazon launching Astro</a> create more incentives.&nbsp;Amazon&rsquo;s acquisition has various implications. Only time will tell whether this boosts the market, and how much.&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">Robotics awareness&nbsp;</h2>Robots are now able to learn a model of their entire body from scratch, without any human assistance. <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abn1944" target="_blank">Researchers from Columbia University</a> developed a visual self-model using deep neural networks that allowed a robot to learn the relationship between its motor actions and the volume it occupied in its environment.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU1OTM2ODEyLXRlc3QgNC53ZWJwIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The team found a way to visualise how the robot saw itself, finding a surprisingly accurate self-image. (<a href="https://www.hackster.io/news/columbia-university-researchers-gave-this-robot-arm-a-true-sense-of-self-cadeac6481a9" target="_blank">source</a>) The researchers placed a robotic arm inside a circle of five streaming video cameras. The video footage was fed to the network as the robot wiggled and contorted. This allowed it to learn exactly how its body moved in response to various motor commands.&nbsp;After about three hours, the robot learned the relationship between its motor actions and the volume it occupied in its environment. Much like an infant exploring itself for the first time in a hall of mirrors.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU1OTU2Njk5LXRlc3Q1LndlYnAiLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Robot inside a circle of five streaming video cameras This awareness allows the robot to plan motion, reach goals, and avoid obstacles in a variety of situations&mdash;another small but incredible step towards robots&rsquo; self-awareness. <h2 dir="ltr">Robotics and Smart textiles</h2><a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/new-shape-shifting-material-can-move-robot" target="_blank">Researchers at the University of New South Wales</a> are also working on a special project. They developed a new class of smart textiles that can shape-shift and turn two-dimensional material into 3D structures. The material is constructed from tiny soft artificial muscles. These muscles are long silicone tubes that can change shape thanks to hydraulics.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU1OTc3MTkxLXRlc3Q2LndlYnAiLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The UNSW team&#39;s smart textile enables fabric reconfiguration which produces shape-morphing structures such as this butterfly and flower that can move using hydraulics. (<a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/new-shape-shifting-material-can-move-robot" target="_blank">source</a>) The artificial muscles can be programmed to contract or expand into a variety of shapes depending on their initial structure. The smart textile can either be attached to existing passive material or yarn to create an active fabric.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU2MDAwMzM2LXRlc3QgNy53ZWJwIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Structure of smart textile (<a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/new-shape-shifting-material-can-move-robot" target="_blank">source</a>)&nbsp;&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">Spider gripper&nbsp;</h2>What&rsquo;s next is not fabric, but something from a sci-fi movie. <a href="https://news.rice.edu/news/2022/rice-engineers-get-grip-necrobotic-spiders" target="_blank">Rice University researchers</a> found a way to use dead spiders as robotic grippers. What started with a dead spider in a lab became a gripper; Necrobotics.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU2MDI3MDc0LXRlc3QgOC53ZWJwIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Functioning of the spider gripper (<a href="https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2022/07/necrobotic-spiders/" target="_blank">source</a>) If you haven&#39;t noticed yet, spiders&rsquo; legs curl up when they die. This is because spiders extend their legs with hydraulic pressure and when spiders die they lose this ability. Researchers tapped into the hydraulic infrastructure of dead spiders using a needle, and by pumping air, they extended the spider&rsquo;s legs. Releasing the pressure retracted the legs, allowing them to grab objects. <h2 dir="ltr">Congratulations to ROS Industrial&nbsp;for its 10-year anniversary</h2>Happy birthday <a href="https://rosindustrial.org/" target="_blank">ROS Industrial</a>! If you don&#39;t know it yet, ROS Industrial is an open source project that seeks to extend ROS and now ROS 2 to industrial hardware and applications.&nbsp;ROS Industrial identifies and prioritises capabilities for industrial robotics and automation to address current and future application problems. They also provide a wide range of user services, including technical support and training, to facilitate the continued adoption of ROS by the industry.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-6yAk05et1Q?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-gtm-yt-inspected-12="true" id="26562603" title="ROS-Industrial 10 Year Anniversary Mash Up"></iframe> They help us all carry the flag of open source in the industrial and automation domain. For that, we are truly thankful and we&rsquo;re proud to be part of this community. &nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr" id="isPasted">Robot Makers - Chapter 3 - Register now!&nbsp;</h2>Did you miss the interview with Akara Robotics CEO Conor McGinn? Don&rsquo;t worry,<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O3X7MM1mx8" target="_blank">&nbsp;the video is now available on youtube</a>.&nbsp;And don&#39;t miss our <a href="https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/6793/555737?utm_source=Canonical&utm_medium=brighttalk&utm_campaign=555737?utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=engage" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">upcoming interview with Russell Nickerson</a>, Engagement Liaison at MassRobotics. MassRobotics is a non-profit coworking space for robotics startups in Boston&#39;s Seaport, where Russell supports more than 60 residence startups.&nbsp;Based on his experience scaling robotics companies, Russell will share the dos and don&#39;ts of go-to-market strategy.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYxMTYwMTQ5MDQyLVtXZWJpbmFyXSBNYXNzUm9ib3RpY3MgUm9ib3QgTWFrZXJzIDIgKDIpLnBuZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" class="fr-fic fr-dii"><ul><li dir="ltr">Register now for <a href="https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/6793/555737?utm_source=Canonical&utm_medium=brighttalk&utm_campaign=555737?utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=engage" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chapter 3 of the Robot Maker series</a></li></ul><h2 dir="ltr">Open source robotics &ndash; white papers</h2>We recently published a whitepaper about the importance of<a href="https://ubuntu.com/engage/robot-operating-system-choice?utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=engage" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&nbsp;choosing the right OS for your robot</a>. Picking the right OS could make a big difference in factors like security, maintenance and infrastructure for deployment.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU2MDcxNzI2LXRlc3QgOS53ZWJwIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><ul><li>Review the implications and explore <a href="https://ubuntu.com/engage/robot-operating-system-choice?utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=engage" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">why so many developers chose Ubuntu</a>.&nbsp;</li></ul><h2 dir="ltr">Open source robotics &ndash; video news</h2>Another month, another video. More news, more applications, more robots! &nbsp;<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O29XoRFNc0k?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> If you want us to feature your robotics application, just send us an email at <a data-fr-linked="true" href="mailto:robotics.community@canonical.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">robotics.community@canonical.com</a>.<ul><li dir="ltr">And don&#39;t forget to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/UbuntuOS/?sub_confirmation=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">follow us for more robotics news, demos and tutorials!</a>&nbsp;</li></ul><h2 dir="ltr">Open-source robotics &ndash; ROS 2 shared memory tutorial</h2>After receiving questions regarding an error message issued by ROS 2 applications in snaps, we decided to put together a blog post on this matter <a href="https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-use-ros-2-shared-memory-in-snaps?utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&ldquo;How to use ROS 2 shared memory in snaps&rdquo;</a><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYwNTU2MDkzNDI3LXRlc3QgMTAud2VicCIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><a href="https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-use-ros-2-shared-memory-in-snaps?utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">In this post</a>, we review the shared memory mechanism in ROS 2, explain why the shared memory feature causes error messages in snaps and propose different solutions to tackle it.As usual, we&rsquo;d love to get your feedback. Feel free to reach out on the <a href="https://forum.snapcraft.io/" target="_blank">snapcraft forum</a>.<h2 dir="ltr">Stay tuned for more robotics news</h2>As always, we would love to hear from you. Send a summary of your robotics innovation and project to <a href="mailto:robotics.community@canonical.com" target="_blank">robotics.community@canonical.com</a>, and we will share it in our next robotics newsletter or monthly video. Thanks for reading!

Monthly robotics news blog. Discover the latest innovations, products, research, tutorials, and security news for robotics.

The State of Robotics, August 2022

In this episode, we talk about an initiative from EPFL to allow those with spinal cord injuries to control robots for help with day-to-day tasks and MIT’s bug robots that are taking big strides for small scaled bio-robotics. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/32c37b88-b3ef-47fb-9e84-e99e608e1ed2?dark=false" class="fr-draggable"></iframe> <hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1642495419840-Mouser-sponsor-1-a.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(2:25) -&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/mind-controlled-robots-now-one-step-closer/" target="_blank">Mind-controlled Robots 🧠🦾</a>(12:25) -&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/giving-bug-like-bots-a-boost/" target="_blank">Bug Robots 🐞🤖</a>Episode 53 was brought to you by Mouser Electronics, Farbod &amp; Daniel’s favorite electronics distributor. Click <a href="https://resources.mouser.com/medical/drawing-a-blank-on-brain-computer-interfaces" target="_blank">here&nbsp;</a>to read the article giving an overview of brain-computer interface technologies.<hr>About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!Take a few seconds to leave us a review. It really helps!&nbsp;<a href="https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2</a>If you do it and send us proof, we’ll give you a shoutout on the show.

In this episode, we talk about an initiative from EPFL to allow those with spinal cord injuries to control robots for help with day-to-day tasks and MIT’s bug robots that are taking big strides for small scaled bio-robotics.

Podcast: Mind-Control and Bug-Like Robots

In this episode, we talk about how starfish larvae inspired robots can revolutionize drug delivery and drones with flacon-like legs for landing. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/b8a350ca-8fe0-4d5d-8b43-10464de4b1c5?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>&nbsp;<hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>. &nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjQwMDcyODU5NzI1LU1vdXNlci1zcG9uc29yLTEtYS5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(3:00) - Starfish-inspired Robot ⭐️🤖(11:30) - Drones With Bird-like Legs🚁🦅Episode 49 was brought to you by Mouser Electronics, Farbod &amp; Daniel’s favorite electronics distributor. Click <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQRmPF7kpo" target="_blank">here</a> to watch the video of Grant Imahara at Carnegie Mellon University discussing biorobotics.<hr>About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts,&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!Take a few seconds to leave us a review. It really helps!&nbsp;<a href="https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2</a>If you do it and send us proof, we’ll give you a shoutout on the show.

In this episode, we talk about how starfish larvae inspired robots can revolutionize drug delivery and drones with flacon-like legs for landing. 

Podcast: Falcon Inspired Drones

In this episode, we talk about a breakthrough in biorobotics with self-reproducing xenobots and a leap in stable tissue engineering designs. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com. &nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/56dfea3f-88e3-4e7c-b408-230412dd1710?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> <hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjM5NDg3ODU4MTIzLU1vdXNlci1zcG9uc29yLTEtYS5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(1:01) - Team Builds First Living Robots - That Can Reproduce(11:30) - Tissue Engineering Using Mechanobiology And Micromanipulation<hr>About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!Take a few seconds to leave us a review. It really helps!&nbsp;<a href="https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2</a>If you do it and send us proof, we’ll give you a shoutout on the show.

In this episode, we talk about a breakthrough in biorobotics with self-reproducing xenobots and a leap in stable tissue engineering designs.

Podcast: Self-Replicating Robots

In any seemingly quiet pond the still waters actually team with tiny pond dwellers called&nbsp;Euglena gracilis.Unseen to the naked eye, the single-celled organism spirals through the water, pulled along a relatively straight path by a whiplike appendage in search of just the right level of light.But a new paper published Sept. 24 in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0277-7" target="_blank">Nature Physics</a> describes how, under some circumstances, Euglena halts its forward progress and begins tracing out elaborate counterclockwise polygons &mdash; triangles, squares, pentagons &mdash; in a mathematically defined effort to find a better environment.The discovery, led by <a href="https://profiles.stanford.edu/hans-riedel-kruse" target="_blank">Ingmar Riedel-Kruse</a>, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, could help scientists design tiny swimming robots of the future to be more efficient and effective at maneuvering through the bloodstream, for example, or navigating watery environments.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to understand biological systems in a mathematical way,&rdquo; Riedel-Kruse said. &ldquo;Seemingly simple feedback loops in single cells can actually generate rather complex behaviors in order to accomplish various tasks.&rdquo;<h2>Well-studied organism</h2>Scientists in the 1800s once marveled at finding Euglena &mdash; a greenish oblong with a red eyespot and long, whiplike flagellum for swimming &mdash; under a microscope. Since then, the organism has been observed by countless generations of biology students. With such a history of being watched, it came as a surprise when postdoctoral fellow Alan Tsang first noticed Euglena&rsquo;s novel behavior in a computer model he&rsquo;d developed to study how it moves in relation to light. In his model, when he simulated increased light, the organism began tracing out polygons.Riedel-Kruse remembered being skeptical when Tsang first described what his model predicted.&ldquo;It was hard to believe that it&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; Riedel-Kruse said. &ldquo;I thought there was something wrong with the code.&rdquo; But when the pair checked under the microscope &mdash; increasing light levels as in the simulation &mdash; there were the polygons.The shapes are a result of how Euglena navigates the world. Because the organism normally rolls through the water on its long axis, the eyespot rotates to survey 360 degrees of light. In steady light conditions &mdash; which is normal under a microscope &mdash; it meanders along in a relatively straight path.However, Tsang said, if the eyespot detects increased light intensity, the Euglena makes a hard turn.&ldquo;Then they don&rsquo;t see the light and they swim straight again,&rdquo; Riedel-Kruse said. &ldquo;But since they keep rolling, then after a full cycle they see again the strong light so they make another strong side turn.&rdquo;Enough straight lines followed by sharp turns and a triangle is born.Tsang noticed that over the course of about 30 seconds, Euglena adapted to the stronger light and the turns became less sharp, creating ever-expanding polygons &mdash; squares, then pentagons &mdash; until, finally, the Euglena headed in a relatively straight line.As for why nobody had seen this before, Riedel-Kruse said people rarely alter light levels while observing Euglena under a microscope. But since Tsang was specifically trying to model how the organism moves in relation to light, he did something unusual and the behavior appeared.<h2>A novel behavior</h2>Riedel-Kruse argued that the behavior makes sense for a Euglena swimming along in a pond under a comfortable source of shade. When it suddenly encounters bright sunlight it can turn quickly to seek a patch of shade. By slowly spiraling outward if the first few turns didn&rsquo;t work, the Euglena ups its chances of eventually getting out of the sunlight.Riedel-Kruse&rsquo;s lab studies Euglena in part to better understand how microorganisms navigate their watery worlds. The researchers also integrate what they learn about Euglena into interactive biology setups for education. Euglena is an unusual organism that can both make its own food and eat what it finds in the water. It is related to plants, animals and fungi &mdash; all known as eukaryotes &mdash; but is a separate group with some unique characteristics.&ldquo;Because it is part of an outgroup to most eukaryotic life, you could learn something that is general, and you can also find out how diverse eukaryotic life can be,&rdquo; Riedel-Kruse said. &ldquo;That makes Euglena really interesting to me.&rdquo;What&rsquo;s more, Riedel-Kruse and Tsang said what they learn &mdash; and the mathematical models they developed &mdash; could be useful for microscale robotics.&ldquo;There is an emerging field where people are trying to engineer and program microscopic swarm robotics for things like microsurgery or drug delivery,&rdquo; Tsang said. &ldquo;I definitely see people looking for efficient control mechanisms at the microscale.&rdquo;<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxwP-waWJlQ?&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" style="width: 1115px; height: 610px;"></iframe>

Euglena swim in polygons to avoid light which may help scientists understand biological systems in a mathematical way. | Video by Riedel-Kruse Lab

New insights about how euglena navigate their world could lead to advances in the way miniature robots of the future maneuver through the bloodstream or other watery environments.

Tiny pond dwellers could help scientists design swimming robots

Robots perform many tasks that humans can&rsquo;t or don&#39;t want to perform, getting around on intricately designed wheels and limbs. If they tip over, however, they are rendered almost useless. A team of University of Illinois mechanical engineers and entomologists are looking to click beetles, who can right themselves without the use of their legs, to solve this robotics challenge.The researchers presented their findings at Living Machines 2017: The 6th International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems at Stanford University, and later won second place in a student and faculty research competition at the international BIOMinnovate Challenge, in Paris, France &ndash; a research expo that showcases biologically-inspired design in engineering, medicine and architecture.<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ozz2jRfBUk?&wmode=opaque" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" style="width: 766px; height: 406px;" frameborder="0"></iframe> &ldquo;This idea came to life when a group of insect physiology students decided to take a closer look at what makes click beetles jump as part of a class project,&rdquo; said <a href="https://www.life.illinois.edu/entomology/index.html" target="_blank">department of entomology</a> research scientist and study co-author <a href="https://www.life.illinois.edu/entomology/faculty/alleyne.html" target="_blank">Marianne Alleyne.</a>The beetles have a unique hinge-like mechanism between their heads and abdomens that makes a clicking sound when initiated and allows them to flip into the air and back onto their feet when they are knocked over, Alleyne said.&ldquo;Very little research had been performed on these beetles, and I thought this legless jumping mechanism would be a perfect candidate for further exploration in the field of bioinspiration,&rdquo; said Alleyne, who teaches a bioinspiration design course with <a href="https://mechanical.illinois.edu/" target="_blank">mechanical science and engineering</a> professor, co-author and lead investigator <a href="https://mechanical.illinois.edu/directory/faculty/awissa" target="_blank">Aimy Wissa</a>.The researchers looked at several species of click beetles, ranging in size from a few just few millimeters to several centimeters in length.&ldquo;Each insect goes through an assembly line of analyses that involve basic characterization, high-speed filming to observe the jump and measurements in the <a href="https://publish.illinois.edu/tribology/" target="_blank">Materials Tribiology Lab</a> with co-author and mechanical science and engineering professor <a href="http://mechanical.illinois.edu/directory/profile/acd" target="_blank">Alison Dunn</a>, to determine how much force it takes to overcome the friction of the hinge within an individual beetles jumping mechanism,&rdquo; Wissa said. &ldquo;We observe, model and validate each stage of the jump with the hopes that we can later integrate them into a self-righting robot.&rdquo;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1568998642025-118939.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The University of Illinois click beetle robotics team. Front row, from left: Professor Aimy Wissa, Aidan Garrett, Luis Urrutia, Ophelia Bolmin and professor Alison Dunn. Back row, from left: Isandro Malik, Xander Hazel, Robert Chapa, Harmen Alleyne, Chengfang Duan and research scientist Marianne Alleyne. Garrett, Malik and H. Alleyne are University of Illinois Laboratory High School students. Photo by L. Brian StaufferThe group has already built several prototypes of a hinge-like, spring-loaded device that will eventually be incorporated into a robot, the researchers said.&ldquo;This study is a two-way street &ndash; engineers are informing the biologists and vice versa,&rdquo; Wissa said. &ldquo;We look forward to seeing where this research will take us and are very proud of the attention it received at the BIOMinnovate Challenge expo.&rdquo;

Click beetles can jump without the aid of their limbs when they are tipped onto their backsides. A team of University of Illinois researchers are examining this mechanism to engineer self-righting robots.  Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

Robots perform many tasks that humans can’t or don't want to perform, getting around on intricately designed wheels and limbs. If they tip over, however, they are rendered almost useless.