Scientists show off melting robot that escapes from cage

3 years ago 1

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Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania have developed a miniature robot that can switch between a liquid and solid state to carry out complex tasks in tough-to-reach spaces, New Scientist reports.

The millimetre-sized robot is made from a combination of the liquid metal gallium and microscopic pieces of a magnetic material. The latter consists of a mix of boron, iron, and neodymium.

The team’s published paper explained that they used customised magnetic fields to generate forces on the magnetic pieces, allowing them to soften, stretch, move, and melt the robot into a “crawling puddle”.

With this approach, they could carry out several tasks with the melting robot, including carrying and affixing a small lightbulb to a circuit board and removing an object from an artificial stomach.

They also had the robot switch from a humanoid-like form into a liquid mass that crawled through the bars of a small cage and resolidified on the other side.

For some readers, the idea of a liquified robot that can move through cage bars might conjure up a famous scene from the Hollywood blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

The main antagonist in the James Cameron movie is a Skynet T-1000 robot (played by Robert Patrick), a shape-shifting machine made of virtually indestructible liquid metal.

In addition to being able to take on the form of any humans it encounters and turning parts of its body into sharp weapons, it moves through the spaces between steel bars in a mental hospital in an attempt to kill its targets.

Fortunately, the intention behind the real-life miniature robot is to help humanity, not exterminate it.

The researchers envision that the robot could be used for repairing circuit boards, smart assembly in factories, and more targeted medication delivery within the body.

It could also be used for emergency repairs of equipment or machines where intervention by humans or conventional robots could be impractical or dangerous.

New Scientist reported that one example of this was to have the robot replace a lost screw on a spacecraft.

Although there are already soft robots capable of operating in narrow or small spaces, they cannot make themselves sturdy or strong enough to carry payloads.

In its solid state, the material the Carnegie Mellon team developed could support objects up to 30 times its own mass.