World’s Smallest Remote-Controlled Walking Robot Is As Small As a Flea and Can Walk on the Edge of a Penny

Engineers at Northwestern University developed a tiny remote-controlled walking robot modeled after the peekytoe sand crab, which is smaller than an average flea and can walk on the edge of a penny. This diminutive robot is considered to be the smallest in the world.

Just a half-millimeter wide, the tiny crabs can bend, twist, crawl, walk, turn and even jump.

While the robot is only in the research stage, the team believes that this design can lead to further advances in the field of “submillimeter-scale multi-material terrestrial robots”.

Although the research is exploratory at this point, the researchers believe their technology might bring the field closer to realizing micro-sized robots that can perform practical tasks inside tightly confined spaces. 

via Boing Boing