The assembly-line robots of the future will be hard at work, but their supervisors may
need a microscope to keep tabs on them. Researchers at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
envision fleets of wireless robots, each no bigger than a coin, performing all sorts of
manufacturing tasks on a molecular scale.
MIT researcher Sylvain Martel told TechExtreme that these robots, dubbed "NanoWalkers,"
could be put to work synthesizing new drugs and chemicals, inspecting DNA, and aiding a
wide range of biology and biotechnology research projects.
Martel noted that when most people think of factory robots, they probably have in mind
the kind used on car-manufacturing assembly lines. But most robots employed today are
performing minuscule tasks behind the scenes in other industries.
"Indeed, the largest consumer of robots is no longer the automobile industry, but rather
the biotechnology industry and the pharmaceutical companies," said Martel, who heads a
team working on the NanoWalkers at MIT's BioInstrumentation Laboratory.
Faster and More Precise
Martel noted, however, that robots currently in use are non-autonomous units placed in
fixed locations, and they are relatively slow -- making about one movement per
second. They are also relatively imprecise and can only perform simple tasks, such as
moving compounds from one location to another.
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