P.C. Shannon

Wired News is reporting on an international team of scientists that is developing a microrobot small enough to swim through arteries and the heart. They hope that the robot, as small as two human hairs, will be able to perform microsurgeries on cranial arteries and other areas that are beyond the reach of catheters. This both refutes and supports my notion that nanotechnology will have to draw inspiration from biology rather than our everyday macroscale world.

One the one hand, this contradicts what I said last night about micromechanical approaches not being viable, because, if they can get this robot to work, it obviously will be viable. On the other hand, it very much agrees with my assertions:

“People have tried various techniques, including electromagnetic motors,” [team leader] James Friend said. “But at this scale, electromagnetic motors become impractical because the magnetic fields become so weak.”

Instead of trying to scale down common mechanical systems, like an electromagnetic motor, Friend and his team are building piezoelectric motors, which operate on different principles.

Moreover, the new design doesn’t use propellers:

The microrobot’s design is based on the E. coli bacterium, complete with flagella that will propel it through the body.

As nanotechnology moves from hype to actual products, we will see that most successful designs use new techniques developed for the nanoscale and draw on knowledge from biology.