ALBAWABA - Researchers have developed tiny robots capable of changing their shape and transforming between liquid and solid states. These robots can work collaboratively and bear a resemblance to the shape-shifting robot from Terminator 2.
Shape-shifting robots
Recently, researchers developed tiny, shape-shifting robots capable of changing their form and transforming between solid and liquid states.
The robots are reminiscent of the T-1000 from the Terminator movie, a character made entirely of a liquid metal called mimetic polyalloy, allowing it to reshape itself into any object of a similar size.
Notably, the research was conducted by a group of experts at UC Santa Barbara University, a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States.
“Cohesive collectives of robotic units that can arrange into virtually any form with any physical properties … has long intrigued both science and fiction,” stated the researches’ paper.
The robots are equipped photodetectors that allow them to receive instructions from a flashlight. (Shutterstock)
The shape-shifting tiny robots are built with motors that allow them to move around together with an attachable magnet to keep them connected. Moreover, the robots are equipped photodetectors that allow them to receive instructions from a flashlight.
Otger Campàs, a professor at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics said: “far from the Terminator thing with size and power challenges remaining. The researchers’ robots were slightly more than 5 centimeters in diameter, though the goal is to get them down to 1 or 2 centimeters, or even smaller.
