Researchers describe the design and fabrication of acoustically propelled microrobots capable of fast unidirectional locomotion via a surface slipping mechanism; the robots exerted thrust forces 2-3 orders of magnitude stronger than those of microorganisms, could be steered using magnetic fields, and could move on flat and curved surfaces, suggesting that they could be deployed in the human vascular system for medical applications.
Article #19-20099: "Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots," by Amirreza Aghakhani, Oncay Yasa, Paul Wrede, and Metin Sitti.
MEDIA CONTACT: Metin Sitti, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, GERMANY; tel: +49-7116893401; e-mail: sitti@is.mpg.de ; Linda Behringer, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, GERMANY; tel: +49-7116893552; e-mail: linda.behringer@is.mpg.de
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences