New research out of the University of Waterloo led to the creation of tiny robots controlled by light to provide environmental and biomedical applications.
Dr. Hamed Shahsavan, a Department of Chemical Engineering professor, has developed a swimming robot that can be steered by light.
They designed these robots with the inspiration of Gerridae insects known as water striders, said Shahsavan.
“They secrete some liquid from their back, and then when it drops on the water’s surface, it gives a kind of force because the difference between the surface tension between the liquid secreted from the insect and the water pushes the insect forward on the water.”
They also use their legs to steer themselves as they propel forward, like a padel, said Shahsavan.
So that’s the locomotion mechanism of many of these water splitters, and we wanted to imitate that in this paper.”
Shahsavan created a bullet-shaped piece of smart material that can be propelled by a fuel similar to the insects.
“A protein taken from the suction cups of squids provides a motor for the devices by absorbing and releasing chemical fuel,” notes a UW release.
“This combination of propulsion and control of the direction of movement is essential in the field of micro-robotics,” said Shahsavan, who collaborated with researchers from the University of Michigan. Dr. Abdon Pena-Francesch, along with graduate students Chuqi Huang and Natalie Pinchin, were also involved in the research.
“So, when you bring it close to the surface of the water, the fuel wants to release from the protein kind of reservoir, and that release gives the propulsive force that pushes the bullet on the surface of the water to a certain direction,” said Shahsavan.
“Now, we wanted to use light to steer this robot because this material is responsive to light. For example, you could bend or deform this material with exposure to some certain light.”
When this robot is put against UV or blue lights, it will bend and cause a drag that works like a paddle. This will eventually allow Shahsavanto control these robots and use them for practical purposes.
“The major application of macro robots, or small robots, is the vision to be in the field of medicine, basically drug delivery, cargo delivery within the inside the human body,” said Shahsavan.
This research was fundamental, noted Shahsavan and where they are at the infancy of this type of research. Still, they hope to eventually be able to collect pollutants from water in the future.
“But if you want to see the application of these kinds of swimmers one day, we envision having them at the surface of the water to collect pollutants, such as chemical pollutants, if you have oil or something like that. And these guys, if you have so many of these guys, they are effective in random or directional motion. You can basically collect them and then have all the pollutants removed and then reuse it again.”
