The researchers see several potential medical and technological applications for their robot. So far, it has passed several tests: repairing the circuit by entering hard-to-reach places and then turning it into solder; melts into a screw socket and then solidifies into a mechanical screw; and removing the foreign body from the model’s abdomen.
“Now, we are pushing this material system in a more practical way to solve some very specific medical and engineering problems.”
An engineer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in the statement. “Now, we are pushing this material system in a more practical way to solve some very specific medical and engineering problems.”
He added: “Future work should further explore how these robots might be used in a biomedical context.
“What we’ve shown is just a one-off demonstration, a proof of concept, but more research will be needed to investigate how this can actually be used for drug delivery or for foreign body removal.”
“Giving robots the ability to switch between liquid and solid states gives them more functionality,” lead author Chengfeng Pan.
