Robotics takes a small, important step forward (with a Terminator 2 flavor): a tiny humanoid robot capable of changing shape, going from a liquid to a metallic state, to easily cross difficult scenarios.
Doesn't it remind you of something?
The robot developed by the University of Hong Kong has great potential due to its extreme ductility. A characteristic that makes it capable of overcoming various limits, and usable in various fields: from the assembly of electronic components to medicine.
The researchers made this contraption do everything: overcome obstacles, remove or deliver objects inside a model of the human stomach. Even going into a liquid state to escape from a cage before returning to its original humanoid form (I attach video). No, seriously, doesn't he remind you of that guy?
“Solid and liquid” robot: once again the credit goes to biomimicry
The promise of soft robots is interesting. Many small soft robots will be able to be used in a variety of situations, such as delicate repair jobs or the targeted delivery of drugs to places too small or convoluted for humans to handle with traditional tools.
However, current materials are either too hard to really ease movement in tight spaces or tight corners, or too flexible to have enough strength and maneuverability.
The research team from Sun Yat-sen University in China, led by Cheng Feng Pan and his colleague Qingyuan Wang, he looked (as in many other cases) for inspiration in nature to find a compromise. Organisms such as so-called "sea cucumbers" can modify the rigidity of their tissues to improve load-bearing capacity and limit physical damage: octopuses, on the other hand, can modify the rigidity of their arms to camouflage themselves, manipulate objects and move.
The result?
After exploring several options, the researchers chose to use gallium, a soft metal that becomes liquid only a few degrees below human body temperature.
By adding magnetic particles to a gallium matrix, the result is a “magnetoactive solid-liquid phase transition machine,” capable of changing shape simply with the heat of your hands. Enough, I'll call it T-1000.
Liquid-solid robot, a few words on practical applications
As mentioned, the researchers created a model of the human stomach and introduced the newly developed robot into it. The task? Finding, “incorporating” and taking a foreign body out of the stomach. Mission accomplished: this suggests that in the future it will be possible to make this journey in both directions: to remove objects, but also to distribute drugs.
Again: robots like this could move on damaged circuits, and "weld" directly onto the damage to repair it. Or seep like a liquid into holes and then become solid screws to hold objects together.
Before we see things like this in action, however, some modifications are needed. For example, because the human body is higher than the melting point of pure gallium, a robot designed for biomedical purposes could have a gallium-based alloy matrix that would raise the melting point while maintaining functionality. This, the researchers say, requires further investigation.
“Forthcoming research will further explore how these robots could be used in a biomedical context. What we are showing are just demonstrations, proofs of concept. Many more studies will be needed to investigate its effective use for administering drugs or removing foreign objects."
