What is Nanorobotics?
Nanorobotics is an emerging sector of robotic engineering that is aimed at creating machines or robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer i.e. 10-9 meters.
It is a sector that refers to the nanotechnology engineering for the designing and building of Nanorobots, with devices ranging in size from 0.1-10 micrometers and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components.
Nanorobotics has aided the engineers in the making of some Nanomachines based on researched work with some of them already tested and showed proficiency in operations. Also, some primitive molecular machines and Nanomotors have been made using the system.
A good example is a sensor having a switch at about 1.5 nanometers across that was able to count specific molecules in a chemical sample.
The first useful application of Nanomachines may be in Nanomedicine. For instance, biological machines could be used to identify and destroy cancer cells.
Its next application is the detection of toxic chemicals, their concentration, and volume within an environment.
Another term that can be used to describe the Nano-robots is that they allow precise interactions with Nanoscale objects, or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution. Such devices are more related to microscopy, instead of their description as a molecular machines.
Defining nanorobotics as microscopy, even large apparatus like the atomic force microscope can be considered a nanorobotics instrument when configured to perform Nano-manipulation.
Based on that, macroscale robots or micro-bots that can move with nanoscale precision can also be considered Nano-robots.
The micro-sizes of Nano-robots make it preferable to bring large numbers of them together in order to carry out a given task together.
Lots of Nano-robots had been predicted to help in the medical field by using them for visual monitoring of human systems by injecting them into bloodstreams. Such an offers lots of progress in medical diagnoses.
The context of nanomedicine by Robert Freitas clearly explained most details theoretically regarding the discussion of nanorobotics, including specific design issues such as sensing, power communication, navigation, manipulation, locomotion, and onboard computation.
THE MANUFACTURING ASPECT OF NANO-ROBOTICS
The making of Nano-machines assembled from nuclear components is a very challenging task in robotic engineering.
Based on the challenges, many engineers and scientists continue working cooperatively across different disciplines necessary for it so that many approaches could be used to achieve breakthroughs in the making of Nanomachines.
The importance found in such micro-robots has made it necessary for more commitment. There are many organizations involved in the Nano-robots project both for its manufacturing, promotions, and investments. The records so far are showing tremendous progress.
The approach to manufacturing Nano-robots for common medical use such as in surgical instruments, diagnosis, and drug delivery is being made possible through biochips in the form of joint use of Nano-electronics, photolithography, and new biomaterials.
That has remained the method in the nanotechnology scale electronics industry since 2008.Â
In practice, Nano-robots are usually integrated as a Nano-electronics device to allow teleoperation and advanced capabilities for a medical instrument.
An organic molecular machine at the nanoscale known as a nucleic acid robot (nubot) may use DNA structure to provide means to assemble 2D and 3D Nano-mechanical devices. DNA-based machines can be activated using small molecules, proteins, and other molecules of DNA.
Biological circuit gates based on DNA materials have been engineered as molecules to allow in vitro drug delivery for targeted health problems.
Such material-based systems would work most closely to smart biomaterial drug system delivery, while not allowing precise in vivo teleoperation of such engineered prototypes.
In a surface-bound system, the attachment of synthetic molecular motors to surfaces has been found in several reports. The early Nano-machines were able to undergo machine-like motions when confined to the surface of a macroscopic material.
The surface anchored motors could potentially be used to move and position nanoscale materials on a surface in the manner of a conveyor belt.
There are other areas of nanorobotics applications such as bio-hybrids technology, bacterial-based medical system, virus-based medical system, and 3D printing technology.
There are still many other areas such can be very useful, especially in modern and future technologies.
