Ant-Sized Microbots Travel in Swarms

While Hollywood focuses on robots several times taller than
humans, some researchers are building tiny robots that could
fit on your fingernail. These microbots would work in swarms
to collect data for a variety of applications, such as
surveillance, micromanufacturing, and medicine.

The researchers, from institutes in Sweden, Spain, Germany,
Italy, and Switzerland, use a novel approach to allow robots
to be built cheaply and in large quantities. Working on
a limited budget, they built an entire robot on a single
circuit board.

Single-chip designs have previously been hard to design and
manufacture. However, instead of soldering the components
together using conventional methods, the researchers used
conductive adhesive to attach different modules to a flexible
printed circuit board using surface mount technology. They
then folded the circuit board to create the robot.

Different modules allow the robot to communicate, move, store
energy, and collect data. The tiny robots, less than 4mm in
any direction, contain a solar cell on top for power, and
vibrating legs, three of which they use to move and one that
acts as a touch sensor.

A single robot wouldn't be able to do much by itself. However,
the project is based on the concept of I-SWARM (intelligent
small-world autonomous robots for micro-manipulation),
inspired by the behavior of insects. According to this
concept, a large number of these robots, interacting with
their environment and able to communicate with each other
using infra-red sensors, could mimic the swarm intelligence
of insects like ants.

The researchers hope to improve the fabrication techniques,
particularly the efficiency of adhesion, and to automate the
process of folding the circuit board. With further funding,
they aim to mass-produce these tiny robots. Unlike some
previous attempts, the researchers hope that their methods
will allow them to manufacture enough microbots to truly
mimic insect behavior and swarm intelligence.