A WIRELESS, origami-inspired robot could travel through the digestive system, releasing drug doses at the site they will be most effective.
Qiji Ze at Stanford University in California and his colleagues have built a 7.8-millimetre robot from polypropylene film that is just 0.05 millimetres thick. At each end is a thin magnetic plate that enables external magnetic fields to control the robot’s movement.
Depending on the orientation of the fields, the robot can be made to spin, flip or roll through liquids, on solids and past any obstacles.
Like a concertina, the robot has a foldable shell that can be compressed. When exposed to certain magnetic fields, the plates at each end twist in opposite directions, collapsing the robot and releasing medicine from the shell.
In a lab experiment, the robot rolled and flipped…
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New Scientist (Digital) - 1 Issue, 23-Apr-22