Tiny robots with ‘brains’ can walk autonomously inside your body

Scientists have built microscopic robots equipped with electronic “brains” that are capable of walking autonomously. “Before, we literally had to manipulate these ‘strings’ in order to get any kind of response from the robot,” said Itai Cohen, a professor of physics at Cornell. It’s like when Pinocchio gains consciousness.” Recommended Tesla set to unveil humanoid robot Optimus The breakthrough involves a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor clock circuit, which can hold thousands of transistors capable of generating frequencies that set the gait of the robot. “The robot might tell us something about its environment, and then we might react by telling it, ‘OK, go over there and try to suss out what’s happening.’ “The real fun part is, just like we never really knew what the iPhone was going to be about until we sent it out into the world, what we’re hoping is that now that we’ve shown the recipe for linking CMOS electronics to robotic actuating limbs, we can unleash this and have people design low-power microchips that can do all sorts of things.” The high degree of programmability could lead to a wide range of applications in medicine, according to lead researcher Dr Michael Reynolds, such as identifying good cells and killing bad cells.” A paper detailing the research, titled ‘Microscopic robots with onboard digital controls’, was published this week in the journal Science Robotics.