A novel 3D printing method for the fabrication small-scale magnetic soft robot has been presented in a study coordinated by the BioRobotics Institute of the Sant’Anna School and published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. The novel 3D printing system is a significant next step that can open up many new applications, especially in the medical field. “Instead of using a different fabrication method each time we want a different magnetic soft robot, now we have a single streamlined fabrication method for almost all future small-scale magnetic soft robots” says Hasan Dad Ansari Mohammad, first author of the study and PhD student at The BioRobotics Institute.
This work was carried out under the joint supervision of the Surgical Robotics and Allied Technologies Area of the BioRobotics Institute, coordinated by prof. Arianna Menciassi, and of the Robot-Assisted Surgery Group of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KU Leuven, Belgium as a part of the ATLAS project. ATLAS (acronym of ‘AuTonomous IntraLuminAl Surgery’) aims at developing smart flexible robots that autonomously propel through complex deformable tubular structures. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813782.
See the full article on Sant’Anna Magazine.