| According to foreign media New Atlas, one day, a tiny flexible biomedical robot may pass through the human body without being tied to an external power supply or control unit. Due to the use of 3D printing technology to produce magnetically responsive devices, people are close to achieving this goal.  Under the leadership of Professor Xuanhe Zhao, a research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began creating elastomeric 3D printing inks and injecting tiny magnetic particles. As the ink is being squeezed out by 3D printers, electromagnets placed around the printer nozzles can cause All particles passing through are magnetically oriented in the same direction. This direction depends on the direction of the electromagnet and can be changed. This means that by changing the orientation of the magnet when the print job is in progress, it is possible to create an object in which the particles are oriented in different directions in different areas of the object. When the flexible object is subsequently subjected to an external magnetic field, These parts will respond by moving in different ways, depending on the direction of their particles. This will cause the object to change its shape, and by moving the magnetic field source, the object can be switched back and forth between multiple shapes. Until now, this technology has been used to produce plates such as folded and unfolded and spider-like devices that can crawl, roll and catch the ball. The researchers said: 'We think this technology will find very promising applications in biomedicine. For example, we can place a structure around the blood vessels to control blood pumping, or use a magnet to guide the device through the gastrointestinal tract Images, extract tissue samples, remove clogs or deliver certain drugs. You can design, simulate and print to achieve a variety of functions. |
