--- title: "Scientists Reveal Robot Small Enough to Travel Through Human Body" description: "The tiny, microscopic robot packs an onboard computer, solar cells, and propulsion system, and is capable of sensing its environment." date: "2025-12-13" modified: "2025-12-13" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/robot-small-travel-human-body" categories: - "Future Society" --- # Scientists Reveal Robot Small Enough to Travel Through Human Body ![The tiny, microscopic robot packs an onboard computer, solar cells, and propulsion system, and is capable of sensing its environment.]() *Maya Lassiter / Miskin Lab / University of Pennsylvania* We're far from realizing the kind of nanomachines envisioned in media like "The Diamond Age" and Metal Gear Solid, but scientists have just taken a meaningful step towards the next best thing. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan say they've built a sub-millimeter sized robot packed with a computer, motor, and sensors, the [*Washington Post* reports](). It's not an actual billionth of a meter in size, but being smaller than a grain of salt, it is still outrageously tiny: a microrobot. The work, described in a [new study]() in the journal *Science Robotics*, could be a platform for one day building microscopic robots that could be deployed inside the human body to perform all sorts of medical miracles, like repairing tissues or delivering treatment to areas difficult for surgeons to access. "It's the first tiny robot to be able to sense, think and act," coauthor Marc Miskin, assistant professor of electrical and systems engineering at UPenn, told *WaPo*. At present, the device is still highly experimental and isn't suited to be used inside a human body — but "it would not surprise me if in 10 years, we would have real uses for this type of robot," coauthor David Blaauw from U-M told the newspaper. Building a [microscopic robot]() that can move, sense its surroundings, and make decisions on its own has evaded scientists for decades. According to the team, roboticists have typically relied on externally controlling the microrobots so they can operate at smaller scales, but sacrificing their ability to process information. That prevents the robots from reacting with their environment, leaving them with a limited number of pre-programmed behaviors they can carry out — and as a result, limited real-world usefulness. Having a robot on the scale of microns, or one millionth of a meter, would give us access to what corresponds to the smallest units of our biology, Miskin told *WaPo*. "Every living thing is basically a giant composite of 100-micron robots, and if you think about that it's quite profound that nature has singled out this one size as being how it wanted to organize life," he said. Visually, the researchers' robot resembles a microchip, and is made of the same kinds of materials, including silicon, platinum, and titanium, *WaPo* noted. It's sealed in a layer of what is essentially glass, Miskin said, protecting it from fluids. The robot uses solar cells to convert energy that powers its onboard computer and its propulsion system, which uses a pair of electrodes to generate a flow in the water particles surrounding it. In a word, the robot swims. Its onboard computer is less than a thousandth of the speed of a modern laptop, per *WaPo*, but it's enough to let it respond to changes it detects in its environment like temperature. "At this scale, the robot's size and power budget are comparable to many unicellular microorganisms," the team wrote in the study. Crucially, the robot is designed to still communicate with its human operators. "We can send messages down to it telling it what we want it to do," using a laptop, Miskin told *WaPo*, "and it can send messages back up to us to tell us what it saw and what it was doing." But the next step? Inter-microrobot communication. "So the next holy grail really is for them to communicate with each other," Blaauw told *WaPo*. **More on robots:** [*Video Shows Robot Attacking CEO*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()