Small Robots, Big Strength

In one of the CNN articles that I examined entitled "These tiny robots have superhuman strength," microrobots approximately the size of a Matchbox car have the ability to pull 2,000 times their weight.  These robots, which are being developed by engineers David Christensen and Elliot Hawkes at Stanford University, have been able to pull weights, drag full cups of coffee, and pull objects up a wall in a lab setting.  Right now, there are two sizes in development.

Several real-world applications for the robots include equipping them with CO2 sensors and sending them into a devastated area or burning building to find survivors.  The small size of these robots also allows them to be sent to place objects in tough-to-reach spots like rafters of a factory, making them applicable in many office and production settings.

Since each robot costs only about $20, Christensen explains that it's not a big deal if one goes missing or gets lost in action.  Each robot can be made in under two days in a lab using 3D printers to make the parts.  Their design is heavily inspired by geckos and ants, "whose feet adapt when they climb or carry a load."  The 'feet' of the robot have spikes that stick to the ground.

The robots can haul an object by planting itself on a hard surface and then pulling a string attached to the object in question.  It repeats this process until the object reaches its destination (provided that there is nothing in the way)

Right now, the robots have only been in development for a few months and will appear at several robotics conferences in the near future.

The engineers hope that the robots can, after being fully developed, work just like an ant colony and accomplish tasks as a team.

My initial thoughts when reading this were if the robots were developed and redesigned in a way that allowed them to climb over obstacles (much like a real ant), they would be much more useful.  Their small size allows them to be ideal for situations in which humans are too big or are unable to reach, and it would be easy to attach a camera or other sensors and open up possibilities for many more uses.  Of course, there will be issues that present themselves such as privacy issues for attaching a camera to something so small and having it have the potential to be very hard to detect.  The engineers did not mention if this would be a product that would be available to the general public, but it would certainly bring about new challenges.

The article definitely does its best to glamorize the technology, and the robots themselves are not all that impressive yet, but what I found most interesting was the engineers' idea to use these tiny robots as a whole unit and colony as opposed to a singular device.  I feel like a lot of robots are expected to perform all functions on their own, and the idea of using many of these tiny little robots to accomplish a goal is interesting.  I also like the idea that we're taking a cue from something that works so well in nature and adapting it. I would be interesting to see how long full development takes on this project.

article:  http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/30/technology/strong-microrobots/index.html