Contents
31 March 2021
Vol 6, Issue 52
Vol 6, Issue 52
Editorial
- Tiny robots make big advances
This special issue showcases developments in microactuation, microparticle control, and micro/nanorobots for biomedicine.
Focus
- NASA’s Perseverance: Robot laboratory on Mars
Perseverance could be the first robot to find Mars microfossils.
- Planetary rovers in science fiction
Science fiction cannot match the admirable inventiveness of Perseverance, Ingenuity, and other planetary rovers.
- Neutrobots smuggle drugs across biological barriers
Neutrophil-based microrobots accomplish the mission of crossing the blood-brain barrier for targeted drug delivery.
- Artificial microswimmers get smart
Reinforcement learning enables microswimmers to navigate through noisy and unexplored real-world environments.
- Good reactions for low-power shape-memory microactuators
Microscale programmable shape-memory actuators based on reversible electrochemical reactions can provide exciting opportunities for microrobotics.
Research Articles
- A microrobotic platform actuated by thermocapillary flows for manipulation at the air-water interface
ThermoBot uses a laser-induced thermocapillary flow to manipulate floating micro-objects and assist self-assemblies.
- A cellular platform for the development of synthetic living machines
Amphibian embryonic explants generate motile living machines.
- Reinforcement learning with artificial microswimmers
Microscopic active particles exhibit adaptive behavior under real-world conditions with reinforcement learning.
- Dual-responsive biohybrid neutrobots for active target delivery
A neutrophil-hybrid microrobot is capable of active accumulation close to the brain and penetration across the blood-brain barrier.
- Micrometer-sized electrically programmable shape-memory actuators for low-power microrobotics
Voltage-driven shape-memory actuators enable multistable micropositioners, origami metamaterials, and memory arrays.
- Swarming behavior and in vivo monitoring of enzymatic nanomotors within the bladder
Urease-powered nanobots demonstrate swarming, collective motion, and fluid mixing in vitro and in vivo.
- Endoscopy-assisted magnetic navigation of biohybrid soft microrobots with rapid endoluminal delivery and imaging
Biohybrid soft microrobots are rapidly delivered to tortuous and tiny lumens deep inside the digestive system.
Review
- Progress in robotics for combating infectious diseases
This Review explores the challenges and the opportunities for robotics to tackle infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
About The Cover
ONLINE COVER Microrobotic Shapeshifters. Robust, fast, and low-power actuation at the microscale is necessary for the continued advancement of microrobotic systems. Liu et al. have developed a micrometer-sized shape-memory actuator that achieves reversible actuation and shape-memory effects through surface electrochemical reactions. These programmable shape-memory actuators have a radius of curvature of ~500 nanometers and an operation speed of less than 100 milliseconds and can be driven at voltages as low as 1 volt. This month's cover is a false-color scanning electron microscope image of an origami duck composed of microscale surface electrochemical actuators (see also the Focus by Omar et al.). [CREDIT: QINGKUN LIU/MCEUEN AND COHEN LABS/CORNELL UNIVERSITY]
