软机器人，折纸结合起来提供治疗

The researchers from The Ohio State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology detailed their discovery, which makes use of the ancient Japanese practice of折纸. Under this system, doctors would use magnetic fields to steer the soft robot inside the body, bringingmedications或治疗需要他们的地方,蕾妮说Zhao, corresponding author of the paper and assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State. "The robot is like a small actuator," Zhao said, "but because we can apply magnetic fields, we can send it into the body without a tether, so it's wireless. That makes it significantly less invasive than our current technologies."

那soft robot由磁性聚合物制成，嵌入磁性颗粒的软复合材料可以远程控制。医疗机器人交付不是一个新的概念，但最先前的设计使用传统机器人，由坚硬的，硬质材料制成。

在这个系统下，医生将使用磁场来转向身体内的软机器人，将药物或治疗带到需要它们的地方，若雷·赵先生·俄亥俄州机械和航空航天工程助理教授的作者表示。“机器人就像一个小型执行器，”赵说，“但是因为我们可以应用磁场，我们可以在没有系绳的情况下将它送入身体，所以它是无线的。这使得它比我们目前的技术明显不那么侵入。”

那soft robot is made of magnetic polymer, a soft composite embedded with magnetic particles that can be controlled remotely. Robotic delivery of medical treatment is not a new concept, but most previous designs used traditional robots, made of stiff, hard materials.

赵说，这个机器人的“软”部件至关重要。“在生物医学工程中，我们希望尽可能小的事情，我们不想建立有电机，控制器，有事的东西，”她说。“而这种材料的优势在于，我们不需要任何这些东西来将它送入身体并将其达到所需的地方。”

在这种情况下，软折纸机器人可用于基于Origami单元的独立控制和部署选择性地提供多种处理。折纸允许材料进入该网站时“打开”，展开处理以及将处理应用于需要它的身体的位置。

这种折纸式的药物递送也不是新的，但由于以前的设计依赖于更繁琐的，笨重的激活或打开折纸来提供药物，那些交付通常很慢。有些人不允许用药送到身体的精确位置。

赵某说，柔软的机器人说，消除了一些笨重。磁场允许研究人员在实验室中控制材料折叠和部署的方向，强度和速度。

Researchers conducted this work in a lab, not in the human body. But the technology, they think, could allow doctors to control the robot from outside the body using only magnetic fields. "In this design, we don't even need any chip, we don't need any electric circuit," she said. "By just applying the external field, the material can respond itself -- it does not need any wired connection."

These findings may have applications beyond delivering medicine, said Glaucio Paulino, a co-author on the paper and professor and Raymond Allen Jones Chair in the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "We anticipate that the reported magnetic origami system is applicable beyond the bounds of this work, including future origami-inspired robots, morphing mechanisms, biomedical devices and outer space structures," Paulino said.

The study was published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.