The DOT-HK2000 Hunter-Killer, but is regardless a highly capable craft and was the Directorate's only viable option for Operation Condor, The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.Your craft, the DOT S-1000 Figment V/YCV, is a Yaw-Configured Vehicle (YCV) with a Vertical Take-Off / Landing (VTOL) capability,ĭesigned chiefly for air defence with secondary low level close quarters “mopping up” combat and downed pilot rescue / retrieval operations,Ī mission it increasingly became tasked with towards the end of the Laser Wars back on earth.īeing a previous generation design, the Figment lacks the cutting edge propulsion technology and hyper agility of its successor, The team also believe the bot could be used to carry instruments or cameras into the body, changing how doctors examine patients and are hoping to continue to scale down the little machine before ahead of testing in animals and humans. It is manoeuvred using magnetic fields which can be altered in strength and orientation.Ī hole in the robot’s centre, helps it swim better while also providing a suction area to allow cargo to be picked up and transported. The robot is origami-based - made from folded materials which can be squeezed and released to perform actions, such as propelling the craft forward, or pumping out medicine. While over-the-counter pills have cured many ailments for decades, biomedical researchers have only recently begun exploring new ways to improve targeted drug delivery when treating more complicated medical conditions, like cardiovascular disease or cancer.Ĭhemotherapy can be extremely damaging to healthy organs, so finding a way to directly target tumours could radically improve treatments.
That is how our robot achieves targeted drug delivery.” Targeted drug delivery “It reaches the target, and then releases a high-concentration drug. Renee Zhao said: “This is the most robust and multifunctional untethered robot we have ever developed. Currently when people swallow a drug, or have it injected in the body, it spreads throughout the system, which limits how powerful treatments can be.īut if a robot could deliver a drug to a precise location it could allow potent medicines to be deployed where they would do the most good, while protecting other parts of the body. Scientists hope that a similar strategy could be used to place high-concentration drugs exactly where they need to be in the body.
The robot was also tested in a pig stomach, where it was filmed moving easily around ripples of muscle, before reaching a designated spot, where it delivered its consignment of blue liquid (standing in for liquid medicine) using an internal pump. Once submerged, the wireless robot swims to a new area, dumping its shipment, before climbing a small flight of steps out of the tank. Stanford University has released astonishing footage showing its pea-sized millibot jumping over hurdles, leaping through the air before plunging into a tank of water to collect a small piece of cargo. Stanford scientists hope the bot can be used to target precise locations as opposed to traditional methods of injecting or swallowing drugsĪ tiny amphibious robot which can swim through bodily fluids and navigate obstacles to deliver drugs exactly where they need to go, has been developed by scientists. Watch: Tiny robot swims through body to deliver medicine where it’s needed