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Robotics Technology

Microrobot Developed at Dartmouth 141

Posted by samzenpus from the everyone-likes-a-little-robot dept.
TheSync writes "Dartmouth researchers have developed the world's smallest untethered, controllable microrobot. The microrobot is much smaller and less massive than previous controllable microrobots. It measures only 60 by 250 micrometers. It receives power and control signals from the grid of electrodes it walks on, and moves by bending its body like a caterpillar. Not quite nanomachines, but we are getting closer!"
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Microrobot Developed at Dartmouth More

Microrobot Developed at Dartmouth

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  • Hello editors (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sexyrexy ( 793497 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:37PM (#13562426)
    The microrobot is much smaller as less massive than previous controllable microrobots.

    Do you even glance at these before hitting "publish"?

  • Units (Score:5, Funny)

    by TopSpin ( 753 ) * on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:38PM (#13562436) Journal
    about as wide as a strand of human hair, and half the length of the period at the end of this sentence. About 200 of these could march in a line across the top of a plain M&M.

    I wish I had the wit to ridicule this properly. Note the care taken to distinguish between plain or peanut M&Ms...

  • Bring it on! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nerdposeur ( 910128 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:40PM (#13562443) Journal
    Hooray! Now we can have the world's tiniest caterpillar race!

    • Re:Bring it on! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Thursday September 15, 2005 @01:07AM (#13563893) Journal
      Not to say that this technology won't be useful for something beyond very short races, but I wish enthusiatsts would understand that nanotechnology will *not* involve *robots*. At the scale of this experiment, solids may be manipulated much like they can at our scale, but liquids behave quite differently because of surface tension. At the scale of nano-technology you're dealing with individual molecules, and *everything* behaves differently. You simply can't manipulate molecules as if the were boxes on an assembly line, as the forces that chemistry works with completely dominate forces such as gravity and friction at that scale.

      We know *exactly* what an efficient nano-scale manipluator of molecules looks like - we call it an enzyme. If it takes a set of molecular manipulations (also called chemical reactions) in a certain order to build the result you desire, and you can make an enzyme which catalyzes each manipulation, then you're done. There's no additional benefit in glueing these enzymes together to make a robot.

      You might want a device that makes these enzymes in the right proportion at a controlable location, and that is self-reproducing until some signal is received, and self-removing when another is received. We call such things "cells" today, but I guess we could also call them "nano-robots" if it made people happy.

  • Micorobots (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:40PM (#13562444) Homepage
    Micorobots - they grow fungus, as opposed to microrobots. And they are smaller because they are... uh, less massive.

    Do the 'editors' ever actually read these submissions anymore?

    • Less Massive = Has less Mass. It's a more accurate way of saying "Weighs less", which would have had us scientific pedants up in arms.
    • "Not quite nanomachines, but we are getting closer!"

      I think they should have called them MicroMachines. Oh, wait, that name is already taken.
    • And they are smaller because they are... uh, less massive.

      Actually, it is important that the editors point out that they are both small AND have reduced mass. After all, if that hadn't been specified, then for all we know the robots could have been small in linear dimensions, but might have been constructed out of neutronium, in which case they would weigh thousands of tons.

  • Not news (Score:5, Funny)

    by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:41PM (#13562452)
    Dartmouth researchers have developed the world's smallest untethered, controllable microrobot

    Let me know when they develop uncontrollable microrobots.

  • Used for surgery, as a contraceptive? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:41PM (#13562455)
    This sort of a device sounds useful for performing certain surgeries, namely tubal ligation in females. Or perhaps even as an intrauterine contraceptive. Imagine one of these devices scooting around, looking for eggs to envelop and destroy. It may very well be far safer than using drugs.

  • Good to see that CMU isn't the only group that's trying to break into Tech.edu

  • That's no robot. (Score:5, Informative)

    by mooncaine ( 778422 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:43PM (#13562469) Journal
    It's a waldo. A robot is independent; a robot makes its own decisions, whether based on the environment or anything the programmers dreamed up. This device is "teleoperated", as the builders say. The word for such a thing is waldo, not robot.
  • Inventors are responsible for naming their inventions properly. If you call them "microrobots", artless Slashdot editors will publish stories calling them "micorobots". No one wants to write "microrobots", however accurate might be that term in Grecoczech, or even in Greczech.

  • not "untethered" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:47PM (#13562494)
    It receives power and control signals from the grid of electrodes it walks on

    ... therefore it is not "untethered".

    • "... therefore it is not "untethered"."

      It *is* untethered. It lacks the single quality required for tetheredness, namely a tether.
      • The practical benefit of a robot being "untethered" isn't simply the lack of a tether, but rather that the power source and control logic are contained onboard. That isn't the case here, so even though there's no literal tether, the robot functions for all practical purposes as if it were tethered.

        • Re:not "untethered" (Score:2, Informative)

          by Alien Being ( 18488 )
          "so even though there's no literal tether"

          "the robot functions for all practical purposes as if it were tethered"

          Even with weasel words you're wrong.

          There's no tether at all. These robots could walk circles around a post forever and never get tangled up or run out of line. They could walk onto a grid-equipped train, ride to Cucamonga and continue their mission. If one of them fell off a cliff, you would have to climb down to retrieve it because there's NO TETHER.

          • Tethered:
            A rope, chain, or similar restraint for holding an animal in place, allowing a short radius in which it can move about.

            So does a tether imply a physical restraint...that's a tough call. I think a similar example would be bumper cars? I personally classify them as tethered despite not being physically "tied" to anything. If you are restricted to a surface to provide the power and control then you are still tethered to said surface, it is restricting where you can move.
            • The definition you quoted defies the usage of the word "tether" in terms of robotics. A tether on a robot is (almost) never used specifically to limit the robot's movement (though usually it has that effect, and is an obstacle that a roboticist tries to overcome or reduce).

              Certainly, a better term would be "umbilical", since it delivers power and control information to the robot, but the term "tether" is still common in robotics.

          • Even with weasel words you're wrong.

            I guess I'll have to bow to your fantastically enormous level of expertise on the subject. Huh, some guy on teh Intarweb says I'm wrong, so I guess I must be wrong.

            These robots could walk circles around a post forever and never get tangled up or run out of line.

            A tether can easily be designed to accomplish the same goal.

            They could walk onto a grid-equipped train, ride to Cucamonga and continue their mission.

            My parents' dog could go a hundred feet down to a tree in the ba
            • "I guess I'll have to bow to your fantastically enormous level of expertise on the subject. "

              Either that or look up the word in a dictionary.

              "My parents' dog could go a hundred feet down to a tree in the backyard, take a dump, and come back, the whole time on a 20 foot leash attached with a pulley to a line that went between the tree and the house. For all practical purposes, the same thing."

              WTF are you talking about? The dog can't go more than about 120 feet. If he wraps the leash (tether) around the tr
              • WTF are you talking about? The dog can't go more than about 120 feet.

                Your example was "They could walk onto a grid-equipped train, ride to Cucamonga and continue their mission."

                The dog example is intended to refute the significance of your statement, because the robot is still restricted to the area covered by the grid, just like my parents' dog is confined to the area covered by the run.

                And those cables are not designed to be tethers. It's a very simple word. Why do you insist on trying to impart new meani

  • How many ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by karvind ( 833059 ) <karvind.gmail@com> on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @08:51PM (#13562525) Journal
    From the story: It receives power and control signals from the grid of electrodes it walks on, and moves by bending its body like a caterpillar.

    How many microrobots can I control on such a grid ? You definitely don't want to have individual wire to each electrode. So it would be some kind of array similar to in semiconductor memories. I wonder what kind of addressing scheme would be required to make sure that we can control a whole army on the grid. I hope the forthcoming paper will have some discussion about it.

  • It's not really untethered if it has to always be in contact with the grid that supplies the power and communication link. It's about as "untethered" as the electric bumpercars at the fair.

  • Mixing units (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mcesh ( 601684 )
    Their extremely tiny machine is about as wide as a strand of human hair, and half the length of the period at the end of this sentence. About 200 of these could march in a line across the top of a plain M&M. [...] Their paper describes a machine that measures 60 micrometers by 250 micrometers

    Look at all the different units! WoaHHs, PatEoTSs, even um! Engineering like this is why NASA runs into problems whenever they try to do a joint operation with the ESA.
    • Look at all the different units! WoaHHs, PatEoTSs, even um!

      I believe you meant um&m. As in, "The robot measures 500um&m in length."
    • If they're having problems, then it is time for them to, well, get with the times. Basically it comes down to the fact that the rest of the world has adopted the SI units. Either NASA can just accept the fact that they will need to make the transition, or they can continue to flounder and run into conversion problems.

    • Look at all the different units! WoaHHs, PatEoTSs, even um

      Is that pronounced "pateots" like potatos in a convoluted way, or is it one of those French/Latin/Italian words with waayy too many letters and an extremely simple pronounciation like "potatos"? ;)
  • "It turns by putting a silicon 'foot' out and pivoting like a motorcyclist skidding around a tight turn"

    Whatever you do, don't try to overclock these babies [speedtv.com], not even with watercooling.

  • it's not "untethered". it's sitting ON a control and power grid. so they turned the tether into a grid? i really don't see how that's neat. that's just a name change. i mean the robot's cool, but it's hardly untethered. it can't exactly run loose in the lab, or the street, or ...

  • Great, now make it do something (Score:4, Insightful)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @09:24PM (#13562710) Homepage Journal
    anything. It's it great the way we always hear about groundbreaking achievements that "could" be used in future applications, but we never actually hear about the applications? Just once I'd like to see a press release where the scientists say "and it can do this useful function right now which we intend to start a spinoff company to commercialise."

  • At very small scales... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zenslug ( 542549 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @09:35PM (#13562776) Homepage

    "At very small scales, this machine is surprisingly fast."

    I just thought that was pretty funny. I mean, at pretty small scales a sloth is a speeding bullet. But his point obviously is that it has a large speed to size ratio.

    And did anyone else notice that during the video [dartmouth.edu] linked in the article as he says, "These robots are maybe 10x the size of human blood cells", while the video shows red blood cells on the machine. It's clear from the image that what he is saying is clearly not true. Maybe just bad editing.

    • It took me a moment to get my bearings on that image as well. Compare the blood cells image with the very first shot at the opening side by side. On the blood cells image, the lightest rectangle, which starts about halfway across the image and runs to about 3/4 of the image horizontally, and vertically from about 3/4 up to the very bottom, only that part is the robot. It runs off the bottom of the image, so you can't see the distinctive round "steering flipper." Look for the distinctive long double step

  • These things are already running amok! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A picture in the gallery shows one of these things covered in "human red blood cells." Clearly, they're already running amok!

          I have to go buy some duct tape...

  • At least they can keep track of them... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @09:50PM (#13562870)
    Bill McLellan, the guy who won Feynman's motor challenge would have won sooner but he kept losing his motor in the dust on his workbench.
  • How the hell is this thing supposed to fetch me a beer?

  • Great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thechao ( 466986 ) <jaroslov@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday September 14, 2005 @10:11PM (#13562992)
    And what's the wear-lifetime of a such a small device? And how does a "microrobot" mean that we're "one step closer to a nanorobot"? The article makes no such claim, and such an extraordinary decrease in size--at least factor a billion in terms of volume--is so dramatic it boggles the mind that it was even suggested. Let me give a good idea about the feasibility of "nanorobots": nature has been shrinking critters for /billions/ of years, look to their level of functionality, i.e. what does a bacterium do? what does a virus do? what does a prion do? to get an idea of what "nanorobots" would be capable of.
    • And how does a "microrobot" mean that we're "one step closer to a nanorobot"?

      Building microrobots that are programmed to build nanorobots is probably easier than building nanorobots directly.
      • Not really. But building microrobots is a good practice for building microtools that can be used to build nanorobots. It's not that a microrobot should be used to build a nanorobot, it's that parts of a relatively large machine should be made on a micro-scale. And for that we need to solve the problems of power transmission, control, etc.
  • The work was funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security Well, you know they'll somehow go to good use in the war on terra.
  • The fact that there are so many typos (as ridiculed above) or the fact that Suicidegirls posted this news topic hours before /. did. (or the fact that I know SG posted this before /.)

  • It's Alive! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday September 15, 2005 @12:46AM (#13563805) Journal
    They brought Microsoft Office Clippey alive!? aaaaaaaah!
  • ...And I will name him, Micro-Me...

    Muahahah,muahahahahahahahahaaaaa...
  • There's the dang Laws of Scale in the way of making anything small and useful. If you shrink anything by a factor of ten in length, height, and width, it has only 1/1000th the volume, and therefore only 1/1000th the horsepower. Do this a few times and friction, surface tension and static electricity rule. Your doo-thingy can't move, much less do any useful work. Don't buy any nanobot stock.
  • If it gets it's power from a grid it walks on how is it unteathered?

  • Basic? (Score:2)

    by zotz ( 3951 )
    What I need to know is if they are controlled by Dartmouth Basic.

    all the best,

    drew
    --
    http://www.ourmedia.org/node/57503 [ourmedia.org]
  • The Jurassic Park author wrote a reasonably entertaining book about military nano-bots becoming artificially intelligent and start acting on their own. Eventually this will be a theater movie.
  • I didn't realise there were sofistimacated labratories in Dartmouth, NS?

    Perhaps it is located in a trailer park along with chief scientists, Bubbles, Julian, and Ricky.

    http://www.trailerparkboys.com/main.html [trailerparkboys.com]

  • "The work was funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Domestic Preparedness through Dartmouth's Institute for Security Technology Studies (ISTS)."

    An extrapolation as to why these guys need nanobots is left as an exercise for the reader.
  • Bite my tiny metal ass!
  • Is this similar to an iron filing on an electromagnetic grid??? If it requires this mat to travel on, I see no difference. The metal filing would probably move quicker, anyhow.

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