How can micro/nanorobots overcome the design and manufacturing bottleneck and drive future technological advancements?

Micro/nanorobots (MNRs) capable of performing tasks at the micro- and nanoscale hold great promise for applications in cutting-edge fields such as biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, and microfabrication. However, the design and manufacturing of high-performance MNRs with complex multi-material three-dimensional structures at the micro- and nanoscale pose significant challenges that cannot be addressed by conventional serial design strategies and single-process manufacturing methods.

The material-interface-structure-function/performance coupled design methods and the additive/formative/subtractive composite manufacturing (AFS-CM) methods offer an opportunity to design and manufacture MNRs with multi-materials and complex structures under multi-factor coupling, thus paving the way for the development of high-performance MNRs.

Published in International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, Prof. Longqiu Li’s team from Harbin Institute of Technology provided a comprehensive overview of coupling design methods, composite manufacturing techniques, and future prospects for MNRs. Their work offers a scientific framework for the designing and manufacturing high-performance MNRs and provides a clear roadmap for researchers interested in this field.

This review focuses on the three core functions of MNRs—mobility, controllability, and load capacity—as key breakthroughs, offering readers insight into how to design and manufacture high-performance MNRs. Specifically, it explores the coupled design methods of high-performance MNRs from three perspectives: material-function integration, interface-performance integration, and structure-performance integration.

It also provides a detailed overview of the AFS-CM methods used for existing MNR functional structures, discusses the limitations of the current investigations, envisions future design methods, manufacturing processes, and testing techniques, and demonstrates future integrated systems for design, manufacturing, and testing.

By focusing on functional requirements and functional expression as the core, the design concept of combining functional design, interface design and structural design provides a new way and breakthrough for high performance MNRs with high environmental adaptability, excellent stability and functional diversity.

However, in order to realize the multiple functions of MNRs, the choice of multiple materials often increases the difficulty and complexity of manufacturing, and increases the uncertainty of functional expression. Therefore, it is necessary to explore new materials that can realize multiple functions, so as to simplify the design and manufacture of MNRs and reduce the risk of functional failure of MNRs.

Taking advantage of the diverse combinations, the AFS-CM method can be adapted to the fabrication of MNRs with different applications. However, to produce MNRs with enhanced functionality and improved performance, further exploration is needed into advanced manufacturing methods for smart materials, composite manufacturing processes for physical vapor deposition and direct laser writing, and more effective techniques for the controllable preparation of MNR surface microstructures using the self-rolled method.

Although a variety of future MNRs have been proposed, their design and manufacturing still face a number of challenges. Prof. Longqiu Li from the team pointed out “Most of the existing designs are subjective. Moreover, due to different knowledge systems, researchers have different design ideas, which leads to difficulties in achieving optimal design when dealing with such multi-factor coupled problems. And existing composite manufacturing methods still have shortcomings in terms of manufacturing efficiency, manufacturing risk, and manufacturing cost, such as the composite of multiple manufacturing processes increases the complexity of manufacturing, the step-by-step nature increases the risk of failure, and the requirement for multi-material/multi-scale increases the manufacturing cost.”

To overcome these issues, the most attractive and innovative way is to develop a set of intelligent design systems and new integrated manufacturing processes and equipment. This would allow for the independent design materials/interfaces/structures/processes of MNRs tailored to specific application requirements. It would enable the rational evaluation of multiple factors to achieve multifunctional compatibility and optimal overall performance for MNRs.

Although there remains a significant journey from laboratory research to commercial application, the team is optimistic about the future of MNRs. “The next generation of MNRs R&D systems should integrate artificial intelligence design, multi-process composite manufacturing equipment, in-situ precision detection tools, and function/performance evaluation systems.” said Prof. Longqiu Li “Future design and manufacturing should leverage artificial intelligence to autonomously allocate materials, structures, and processes based on functional requirements, while enabling real-time data transfer with manufacturing equipment to achieve comprehensive information fusion and intelligent optimization throughout the process.”

About IJEM:

International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing (IF: 16.1, consecutive 1st in the Engineering, Manufacturing category) is a new multidisciplinary and open-access and double anonymous peer-reviewed journal uniquely covering the full spectrum of extreme manufacturing.

The journal is devoted to publishing original articles and reviews of the highest quality and impact in the areas related to the science and technology of manufacturing functional devices and systems with extreme dimensions (extremely large or small) and/or extreme functionalities, ranging from fundamental science to cutting-edge technologies that support the manufacturing of high-performance products involving emerging techniques and breaking the limits of currently known theories, methods, scales, environments, and performance.

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