Prototype of the T-1000 terminator

Xinjiang Fan of Soochow University, Taiwan, and colleagues used magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles suspended in the oil to create a soft robot the size of about a centimeter. He can crumble when faced with obstacles or must pass through a narrow tunnel and then recover. In the future, liquid robot can be used for targeted drug delivery.

See how liquid the robot runs through the maze, you can here.

The researchers used magnets to compress the robot in a thin spindle shape and draw a narrow channel. Also with the help of magnetic fields, they were able to split it into a group of smaller robots, and then combined into one.

Use the new robot is very likely, but in the distant future – the creation of a strong enough magnetic field to navigate the robot inside the body is a complex task. The development can be used to deliver drugs for this patient will have to swallow robot vector, which is then split, probably in the gastrointestinal tract into smaller pieces, and each drop the robot will deliver the drug in a specific organ. Another use may be to remove blood clots inside blood vessels. It's also possible the direct use in the laboratory chips – robots could deliver the chemicals required for the reactions.

Article X. Fan et al. Scale-miniature ferrofluidic reconfigurable robots for negotiating sharply variable spaces is published in the journal Science Advances.

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