It can 'autonomously drive' without batteries, and this robot can have unlimited battery life.

A new type of "car" has emerged that can drive autonomously without installing a battery. It can even automatically collect energy to continue running without any mileage anxiety (manual dog head)

This little robot is called MilliMobile and comes from the University of Washington. Its energy source is light and radio wave power

Although it is only the size of a fingernail and weighs about the same as a raisin, it can easily carry equipment three times its own weight. And it can not only run on cement roads, but also move freely on "rural dirt roads".

The picture source of the first battery-free autonomous robot is the University of Washington

Small robots often carry sensors and are used to perform industrial tasks such as detecting gas leaks and tracking warehousing. However, these robots face an important problem, that is, the use of disposable batteries not only limits the life of the robot, but is also not very environmentally friendly

Researchers have been pursuing alternatives, such as strapping sensors directly to insects

△ Source: University of Washington

But apparently, researchers at the University of Washington believe that some of the past methods are not controllable enough. Their new idea is to use "intermittent motion" to drive the robot.

Simply put, on the one hand, it is to reduce the size and weight of the robot so that it can operate at extremely low power (less than 57 microwatts).

On the other hand, researchers equipped MilliMobile with film capacitors to store energy from sunlight/radio waves. When the energy stored in the capacitor reaches a certain threshold, the motor can be driven to generate a short motion pulse to make the robot move.

Seeing this, you may have a question: That’s it? Can this robot really run?

Researchers successfully conducted the experiment: Even on a cloudy day, MilliMobile was able to move a distance of 10 meters in 1 hour

The speed is indeed not fast, but researchers say that as long as it can continue to operate at this speed, it can bring new robotic capabilities to areas where it has been difficult to obtain data by deploying sensors in the past.

As mentioned before, MilliMobile is small but full of features and includes the following:

• 4 photodiodes, used to detect light intensity in 4 directions, allowing the robot to independently find light sources for charging
• Temperature and humidity sensor
• Accelerometer
• Magnetic Sensor
• gas sensor
• Micro Camera
• Wireless communication chip

MilliMobile has various sensing capabilities and can automatically detect terrain and realize autonomous driving

Be able to turn to the light source to recharge yourself:

Extensive spatial sampling is possible to create more detailed views of the environment

By optimizing the synchronous transmission protocol at the software level, data can also be transmitted within a range of 200 meters. To briefly summarize, it can be said that MilliMobile has achieved autonomy in terms of power supply, control and communication.

The evaluation of the technology website said: This work has the flavor of science fiction brought into reality. What do you think?

There is no need to change the original meaning when rewriting the content. The language needs to be changed to Chinese and the original sentence does not need to appear

• [1]https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/09/27/millimobile-battery-free-autonomous-self-driving-robot-solar/
• [2] Paper address: https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~vsiyer / Papers / millimobile-compressed.pdf

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