- The researchers can control the behaviour of each bot using magnetic fields
- Tiny magnetic screws allow the robots to move their limbs independently
- Scientists could inject the robots into the body to help fight a range of diseases
Our bodies are full of immune cells that circle around the blood, ready to see off any invaders.
And soon they could be getting a helping hand from tiny disease-fighting robots.
Scientists have created an army of magnetically-controlled robots which they say could help our bodies fight off diseases such as cancer.
This Lego bot, pictured, can move its limbs independently thanks to tiny magnetic screws. Researchers from Philips Innovative Technologies in Hamburg have used these screws to create an army of microscopic robots
The robots have been designed by researchers from Philips Innovative Technologies in Hamburg.
Researchers can control the movement of each microscopic bots by making use of powerful magnetic fields.
Tiny magnetic screws are frozen into place using strong magnetic forces.
But the researchers deliberately left ‘weak spots’ inside the magnetic field so that the immobilised screws were free to spin around.
This allowed the researchers to attach tiny movable limbs to the screws, which can each be controlled independently.
Hundreds of the tiny bots have been created, which are all capable of being controlled independently.
‘One could think of screw-driven mechanisms that perform tasks inside the human body without the need for batteries or motors,’ Jürgen Rahmer, a physicist at Philips Innovative Technologies in Hamburg, told Live Science.
‘Our method may enable complex manipulations inside the human body.’
Our bodies are full of immune cells that circle around the blood, ready to see off any invaders. And soon they could be getting a helping hand from tiny disease-fighting robots (artist’s impression)
So far the magnetic screws have been tested on Lego robots, allowing the bots to swing their limbs independently.
But the researchers believe the robot swarm could one day be injected to help our bodies fight off cancer.
They suggested that the robot swarms could be hidden inside microscopic pills that can be injected into the blood.
The pills could travel through the body harmlessly until they reach a cancerous tumour.
Doctors could then manipulate the robots to open up the pill and start killing off the tumour cells by delivering doses of radiation.
Once the tumour has been destroyed, the scientists could shut the swarm down using the magnetic forces.