Microscopic Soft Robots Help Our Bodies Stay Healthy From The Inside

Indira Datta - Feb 19, 2019

A research team from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL) created a very small set of devices and robots that can be inserted into the human body to adjust the muscle movement

Even when we sit still, the small tissues in our bodies still move continuously, this is a mandatory function of the human body. Properly opened and closed blood vessels will help the body's transport of substances to move in the right direction and help people grow healthy.

However, if the process does not happen properly, it will cause the body to have different diseases. A research team from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL) has focused on this issue and created a very small set of devices and robots that can be inserted into the human body to adjust the muscle movement. Lab on a Chip magazine published this study, saying that these very small tools and robots will help people improve muscle movement problems or put drugs into our bodies from the inside.

The device is very small and very soft, making it easy to move in the human body

The EPFL team, based on the locomotive system, creates microscopic robots made of hydrogels, similar to high-tech blocks. The blocks have the ability to add tendon-like polymers that make the structures become more bent and flexible when it forms a type of skeleton.

Scientists can easily activate a quick relaxation and contraction cycle lasting for only a few milliseconds through a ray of light close to the energy of infrared rays. Since then, we have an artificial bone and muscle system that is about the size of cells. This is capable of carrying out complex micro-tasks in the human body.

Modular robots, powered by small muscles could have important applications in medicine

This research in the future will be highly applicable to the development of medicine and healing for humans. The implantation of the drug into the human body becomes more convenient when we can put the required medication into the body or use the remote control to implant the drug into different organs. It also helps research processes that always require micro-biology. It is possible that in the future people will improve their health because of the small robots in their bodies.