Electrokinetic propulsion for electronically integrated microscopic robots.

ABSTRACT: Semiconductor microelectronics are emerging as a powerful tool for building smart, autonomous sub-millimeter robots. Yet a number of existing microrobot platforms, despite significant advantages in speed, robustness, power consumption, or ease of fabrication, have no clear path toward electronics integration, limiting their potential for intelligence. Here, we show how to upgrade a class of self-propelled particles into electronically integrated microrobots, reaping the best of both platforms in a single design. Inspired by electrokinetic micromotors, these robots generate electric fields in a surrounding fluid, and by extension propulsive electrokinetic flows. The underlying physics is captured by a model in which robot speed is proportional to applied current, making design and control s

SUBMITTER: Hanson LC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12305017 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature