Fabrication and Modeling of Hydrogel-based Microrobots for Advanced Functionalities

Microrobots have attracted plenty of attention due to their potential biomedical applications such as drug delivery, cell-manipulation, and non-invasive surgery. In the past years, the research has been focused on the mobilities of different microrobot designs. However, this focus has been changed to the advanced functionalities of microrobots recently along with the development of fabricating smart polymers at the microscale. These smart polymers such as hydrogels and liquid crystalline polymers are soft and stimuli-responsive so that they can deform significantly under stimulus like pH, temperature, and light. After applying the smart polymers into microrobots, applications such as active adaptive locomotion and micromanipulation can be achieved. We report on the fabrication and modeling of hydrogel-based microrobots for adaptive locomotion and micromanipulation under various stimulations. These microrobots with advanced functionalities may be useful for future bio-applications for transporting drugs in blood vessels with different sizes and manipulating cells actively.