Micro-Machines

The futures of robotics is in micro-robotics.

Whatever a big machine can do, 10 smaller machines can do it better. Whether we are mining minerals, exploring space, performing surgery, fighting an army or building a skyscraper it’s usually more efficient to choose smaller machines.

If we compare a machine one meter tall, with two of half a meter we realize two things. Altough they may use the same amount of material it’s cheaper to build two smaller, because the second one uses the some molder as the first one. And the smaller ones are more flexible, adjustable, they can fit in narrower spaces and it is easier to do maintenaince without stopping their work.

If you are thinking: Then let us make4 machines ¼ of the size, or 8 machines 1/8 of the size and so on. So where does it stop?

The limits are: miniaturization, inter-communication and of course in some cases there is reasonable size for what you are doing.

For example if you are chopping down trees you better have one machine capable of grabing an entire tree.

Inter-communication is a very interesting topic that I intend to develop on another post.

Miniaturization is the work of every hardware and robotics developer. And it is a work with consistent results. Processing equipment is getting smaller and smaller, and nanotechnologies will allow them to get much smaller.

Two other problems related to micro machines are: energy and the coming back.

Energy is always a problem when we are talking about machines and robotics. It’s a challenge for any machine to carry enough energy so they must have a way of collecting them easily.

And of course when we are talking about mass production we should consider the need for them to come back for re-use and recycle.

But once we get around this challenges miniaturization of robotics should be entering an exponencial growing rate.

After all, bears do not form colonies as efficient as bees or ants.