ArticleScience advances2025
Reconfigurable robust microrobot collectives with large force output enabled by gradient magnetic fields.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evaporation-assembled magnetic microrobots with stable geometry and polymer-tunable function.RSC applied polymers · 2026Article
- Three-dimensional reconfigurable magnetic microswarms with boundary-transcending capabilities.Science advances · 2026Article
- A ciliated intravascular soft millirobot for multimodal in-flow collective manipulation.Science advances · 2026Article
- Reconfigurable Cilia-Based Magnetic Millirobots for Cooperative Particle Manipulation Through Programmable Assembly in Microfluidics.Micromachines · 2026Article
- Recent Advances in Collective Behaviors of Micro/Nanomotor Swarms.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Review
- Autonomous Microrobots for Spatiotemporally Active Therapeutic Delivery and Controlled Release.Cyborg and bionic systems (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Robot collectives offer a promising solution for complex assignments that are nearly impossible for individual robots to execute. In microscopic scenarios, organizing microrobot collectives is now governed by agent-agent physical interactions. However, the existing methods are insufficient to produce robust connections and fail to tolerate harsh environments. We propose a strategy to efficiently program microrobots into reconfigurable robust collectives to operate in various dynamic environments. Magnetic collectives are produced to achieve reconfigurable pattern transformation with considerable structural enhancement via well-designed gradient magnetic fields. The strong gradient magnetic field-induced connections among individual microrobots enable a record-breaking 700-fold output force enhancement, and 0.2-gram microrobot collectives generate Newton-level output forces. The proposed reconfigurable microrobot collectives provide a stable and promising approach to executing droplet, fluid, and solid manipulations via powerful output forces. These results may have implications for further understanding of self-assembly, particle systems, microrobot collectives, smart dust, and related microscopic multiagent behaviors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.