Watch a tiny jellyfish robot swim through several tasks
S. Himmelstein | July 09, 2019A tiny jellyfish-inspired robot that swims and manipulates objects was designed at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems for potential use in biomedical and environmental monitoring applications.
The 5 mm diameter, untethered, robotic platform was inspired by juveniles of the most widely distributed Capturing a neutrally buoyant bead using the fluid flow around the robot’s lappets, or folds. Source: Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systemsjellyfish, scyphomedusa ephyra. An external, oscillating magnetic field is used to control motion via magnetic particles embedded within elastomer folds. This mimics the species, which propels itself with a paddling motion and creates a fluidic flow around its soft body while swimming.
In addition to swimming, the jellyfish bot performed different tasks, including transporting beads of different sizes, and burrowing and mixing different fluids. The device was also shown to successfully patch a target surface, mimicking cancerous tissue inside a bladder organ phantom while being guided under ultrasound imaging.
The robotic system described in Nature Communications could find use in marine environmental monitoring or in the delivery of therapeutic agents to inaccessible places in the human body.