Ooh, Wavy! These Soft Microbots Move Like Cilia

Big Hero 6’s Hiro will be jealous. Korean researchers have developed microbots that can mimic the fluid movement of cilia.

AsianScientist (Sep. 19, 2016) – A research team in South Korea has developed microrobots that move by mimicking the movement of cilia, the hair-like projections on cells. The work was published in Scientific Reports.

To date, there are already microrobots that use propulsion mechanisms such as spiral drive motion and progressive wave motion to move. However, microrobots that move utilizing ciliary motion have not been designed due to the difficulty of producing a microstructure with a large number of cilia. In the human body, these projections are important for the movement of small particles in viscous fluid environments such as blood.

Using techniques such as three-dimensional laser process technology and precise metal coating, Professor Hongsoo Choi of the Department of Robotics Engineering at the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) has produced a ciliary microrobot with nickel and titanium coating on top of photo-curable polymer material.

The maximum speed of the ciliary microrobot, which has a length of 220 micrometers and a height of 60 micrometers, is 340 micrometers per second; it thus can move at least 8.6 times faster and as much as 25.8 times faster than conventional microrobots moving under magnetic attraction.

Choi said, “With precise three-dimensional fabrication techniques and magnetic control technology, my team has developed microrobots mimicking cilia’s asymmetric reciprocation movement, which has been never realized so far. We’ll continually strive to study and experiment on microrobots that can efficiently move and operate in the human body, so that they can be utilized in chemical and cell delivery as well as in non-invasive surgery.”

Compared to previously-developed microrobots, Choi’s ciliary microrobots are expected to deliver higher amounts of chemicals and cells to target areas in viscous environments. This is thanks to their ability to freely change direction and to move in an 80-micrometer-diameter sphere to a target using a magnetic field.


The article can be found at: Kim et al. (2016) Fabrication and Manipulation of Ciliary Microrobots with Non-reciprocal Magnetic Actuation.

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Source: DGIST.
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