3D Printed Microrobots that Swim and Move like Living Organisms

A robot that behaves like a living being but has no sensors. That moves without software. That makes decisions without a “brain.” This is the latest breakthrough by Professor Daniela Kraft at Leiden University (Netherlands). Recently published under the title “Life-like behavior emerging in active and flexible microstructures” the work by Daniela Kraft and her colleague Mengshi Wei presents a new class of 3D-printed microscopic structures that exhibit behaviors surprisingly similar to those of living organisms. All this without a single sensor, without a line of code, without a motor.

The secret to this project lies in a Nanoscribe 3D printer, a two-photon photopolymerization machine capable of working at the micrometer scale with high precision. Using this printer, the team fabricates flexible chains composed of individual segments just 5 µm wide, connected by 0.5 µm joints. To give you an idea: these parts are ten times thinner than a human hair. The researchers emphasize that “This is 3D-printing at the very edge of what is technically possible.”

The microrobots adapt to different terrains.

The inspiration came from nature. Worms, snakes, and other organisms constantly change their shape as they move, allowing them to adapt to their surroundings. Flexible robots that utilize this principle already exist, but replicating it on a micrometer scale posed a challenge: until now, microrobots were either rigid and small, or flexible but large.