How would you feel if you had tiny robots taking care and attending to your skin problems? Amazing…. right? This is what a group of Seoul National University researchers are trying to do. They are trying to create tiny robots inspired by the slow motion of plants. Responding to change in humidity, parts of many plants (like mimosa leaves or seeds found in pine cones) swell and move.

Changes in humidity cause these parts to bend and unbend repeatedly. The research team was interested to harness this motion to produce forward movement. Ho-Young Kim of Seoul National University explained: “This cyclic motion must be converted into directional motion to create a robot that moves. So we attached legs to our actuator, which allows only one-directional locomotion. We call the legs ‘ratchets’ and combined them with an actuator to build our bio-inspired robot.”

The point to note is that plants move really slowly, so much so that one cycle of bending an unbending takes an entire day. To overcome this problem, the researchers used active nano-scale fibres to increase the surface area-to-volume ratio of the absorbent layer; this enabled it to take in more humidity more rapidly. Since humidity changes occur all around us (for ex. Even breathing causes change in humidity as humid air is exhaled from our mouths) this concept can prove to be a game changer.

The scientist community though is more interested in placing these microbots where humidity changes can be easily tapped into- the human skin. Docotr Kim explains in detail: “The concept is that by bending, some part of the robot will move away from the skin to encounter dry atmospheric air. When it dries, the robot will return to an upright position near the skin. Such a robot could do jobs like disinfecting wounds, removing skin wrinkles, and nourishing skin tissues.”

As far-fetched it may seem right now but we sure are keeping our hopes high.

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Author:Technology Blog