China developed robot that shoots like a bullet when it sees light

A team of scientists from China developed a robot that shoots like a bullet when it sees light in significant development. They created a light-powered launch system for tiny robots by getting inspiration from “squirting cucumbers.”

Squirting cucumbers refers to a hairy plant Ecballium elaterium which bears fruit and discharges its seeds explosively when it gets ripe. This new technology could be used in medicine, farming, space travel, and even shooting.

*Tiny shoots like a bullet when it sees light using hydrogel and graphene launch system*

It is a soft hydrogel and graphene launcher for robots that can release energy (shoot) in 0.3 milliseconds. It allows the device to take off quickly from wet and dry surfaces and travel a distance that’s 643 times its height.

This technology might be used to build small medical robots for deep tissue sampling, intelligent agricultural seeding robots, or even a soft bullet-like device.

The Journal Nature Materials has published this study. The scientists stated robots need power-amplification strategies that create kinetic energy from stored energy to do tasks that need strong movement, like jumping, ejecting, or throwing.

This inspired them to develop this technology. Wang Xin is the lead author of this study. He stated robots under this technology need energy release for a short time duration to generate sufficient driving force.

Earlier, techniques depended on chemical or elastic energy which may have drawbacks. Such as difficult production, prolonged energy release times, and insufficient energy storage.

*G-hydrogel launcher helps the robot perform difficult medical tasks*

Click here to read the updates on researchers who made a battery you-can-eat that will power an edible robot

Hence, China developed the entire G-hydrogel launcher for a robot that shoots like a bullet at the sight of light. It is a disk-shaped device that is compact. It can move more than 1.83 meters vertically even though it is only 7mm.

According to Wang, this launcher knocked out all current engineering tiny robot systems with jumping or launching motions. This is beneficial for medical robots that require force output in deep tissue sampling, and tissue removal tube distribution.

Moreover, he stated they can also create autonomous medical robots that need high-power output to enter deep tissue. However, the team of scientists is still testing launch systems for robots under this technology.