Event

Vascularized robot grows UV sensor using artificial circulatory system

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A team from the University of Tartu in Estonia and the Italian Institute of Technology enabled a moth-inspired robot to use an artificial circulatory system to deliver chemical raw materials such as pyrrole, synthesizing a polypyrrole UV sensor in situ at sites exposed to ultraviolet light, thereby giving the robot a sensing capability it did not originally have. The study was published in Advanced Science. The authors describe this as a proof of concept with clear limitations: only one pre-set chemical pathway was demonstrated, and the synthesis is irreversible; in the experiment, the researchers decided when to fill the vessels, and the sensor formation sites were determined by a template rather than by the natural environment; the light that created the sensor was also the signal it later detected, but the authors believe the method can be extended to other chemicals and trigger conditions.