Thanks to modern science fiction , everybody’s probably familiar with the image of a cloud of nanites or mini-robots, zipping around the lab of a mad scientist. Once again, it seems we’re seeing science fiction become reality, this time through the efforts of SRI International, a company that’s working on miniaturized bots to work on micro projects and assembly.
SRI International is developing the Diamagnetic Micro Manipulation, or DM3, system in order to create a much faster way of completing the assembly of micro circuits, individual electronic parts, and micro mechanical systems. Their systems uses magnetic fields around these circuit boards in order to guide the micro-bots—each about the size of a tick—in specific patterns for work. As the DM3 bots are exceptionally small, they can work both faster and at more specific areas than traditional methods of micro assembly. Just take a look at the video below:
Cooperation is the key to the system’s success: the bots are designed to be completely in-sync with the others, with their movements designed down to the microsecond. While the current system uses only a handful of these micro-bots to complete tasks, eventually SRI plans to create a system that would use thousands, to be used in micro-factories.
The DM3 micro-bots were developed as part of the DARPA Open Manufactoring program, and has several possible applications including the production of high-silicone-based electronics, high-tech prototyping, and even “tissue manufacturing,” according to SRI International’s website.
“Our vision is to enable an assembly head containing thousands of micro-robots to manufacture high-quality macro-scale products while providing millimeter-scale structural control,” said the company.
There’s no word on when these micro-bot will start work, but we’re definitely one step closer to factories that run completely on mechanical workers. I’ll let you decide if that’s good or bad.
Source Discovery.
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