IIT-Bhilai develops microrobots for targetted drug delivery

Raipur: Researchers at IIT Bhilai have developed a new way to control tiny microrobots, opening avenues for targeted drug delivery and micro-machines.

Raipur: Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhilai have designed a new class of microrobots and discovered a method to control their movement using light and tiny particles. The researchers at the Active Micro and Nano Systems (AMN) Lab at IIT Bhilai, led by Dr Dhruv Pratap Singh, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, published their study in the international journal Small (Wiley-VCH, Germany).

These microrobots, smaller than a grain of sand, are made from silica and titania. The titania reacts to light, causing the robots to swim. Researchers found that by adding harmless silica particles, they could control the microrobots' movement. The team, including Dr Singh, PhD researcher Suvendu Kumar Panda, and Dr Sayan Das (BITS-Pilani Hyderabad), discovered that varying the number and size of particles attached to the bots alters their movement. This allows for precisely tuned swimming patterns.

"We found that these tiny robots can change how they move just by sticking to these little particles," said Panda, a key researcher. "They can spiral, go straight, or even orbit around a particle, depending on how many they attach to and how big they are." This discovery has potential applications in chemical mixing within labs on chips, disease diagnosis, and water pollution cleanup. "The beauty of our system is that we're altering dynamics without changing the core morphology of the micromotor," said Dr Singh. "We're learning how to program tiny robots without using electronics or wires — just by changing their surroundings."

Supported by Indian govt science and technology programmes, the team will investigate the behaviour of these microrobots in complex and living systems. "We're just beginning to scratch the surface of what these microrobots can do when given the right conditions — or companions," added Dr Singh.