Creepy Crawlers: World's Smallest Remote-Controlled Robot

Many scientific fields are limited to one advance at a time. But robotics is special. First, it’s driving forth the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Second, progress comes simultaneously as researchers upgrade capabilities while reducing size. For example, look no further than Northwestern University’s “smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot.” It’s smaller than a flea and modeled after a peekytoe crab, because why not:

The remote-controlled, petite peekytoe isn’t guided through a conventional controller like the ones used for RC cars or drones. No, this crab is controlled by a laser. 

A Potentially Revolutionary New Power Source

Since it’s less-than-flea sized, that doesn’t leave much room for locomotive hardware such as hydraulics or what have you. But it doesn’t need an engine or electricity to perform its functions. Rather, the crab’s power “lies within the elastic resilience of its body” because it’s constructed from a “shape-memory alloy” that “remembers” its original shape when heated.

When scientists zap it with a laser, the crab reverts to its original shape. Then as it cools, it returns to what one might call a resting shape. And this constant shift between two shapes makes it move.

Making these robots smaller actually increases their speed, as smaller things cool faster. Its crab form? Entirely up to the whim of the Northwestern students.

As a result, the petite peekytoe demonstrates “a variety of controlled motion modalities” by walking, crawling, twisting, turning, and leaping. It’s proficient at it, too, “with an average speed of half its body length per second.” A truly momentous feat for terrestrial robots at such tiny scales.

Future applications abound. In the medical field, these bots could offer a minimally invasive way to target tumors, stop internal bleeding, or clear out obstructed arteries. And in industry, micro-robots could efficiently build, repair, or maintain machinery or small components. 

An Equally Impressive Precedent

This wasn’t Northwestern University’s first tiny robot rodeo. They’ve also created much larger (proportionally much larger, but still only a single, diminutive millimeter in size) robots shaped after worms, beetles, and crickets. And in September of 2021, the same Northwestern team unveiled “the smallest-ever human-made flying structure,” an airborne microchip the size of a sand grain.  

This advance imbued the ubiquitous, irreplaceable microchips with a new power: flight.

As with the peekytoe, there is no motor or engine. Instead, it soars on the wind like its natural inspiration, the maple tree’s propeller seed. These “microfliers” can contain majorly miniaturized sensors, power sources, memory banks, and an antenna for data transfer. They may one day be used to monitor pollution, airborne disease, and other environmental factors.

They’re bioresorbable to boot, meaning they dissolve into the environment and disappear, leaving no trace or waste. 

Inspiration Is Invaluable

Northwestern’s innovations also highlight another vital scientific principle: inspiration can strike from anywhere and any angle. Both the teensy-weensy peekytoe and the fancy flier are complex micro-robotics inspired by a not-so-complex entity, children’s pop-up books. Northwestern’s fabrication technique is almost a decade old: flat pieces bonded onto slightly stretched rubber. When that stretch is released, the robots pop into their “precisely defined three-dimensional forms.” 

Inspiration and drive are essential. And you can benefit from both by partnering with Beltim & Associates, so get a free quote today or contact us to see how we can help shape your future project’s success!  

Beltim & Associates