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As you probably know, one of the reasons space launching projects take a long time is due to how expensive they are. Taking one kilogram to space is currently estimated at a few thousand dollars, which already signifies that regulating weight and space of everything taken should be well regulated. Flying technology is much easier, of course, if it weighs less than a gram! A research team in the Imperial College in the UK developed a space thruster which can fit on your fingernail. The thruster is made out of iridium, and runs solely on water through its electrolyzer, which “runs a 20-watt current through water to produce hydrogen and oxygen to propel the thruster,” says ESA. The purpose of this technology is to “manoeuvre the smallest classes of satellite.” Perhaps the future of space lies with smaller technologies, and not only bigger rockets.
Source: esa.int
Service robots are incredibly useful in many agricultural and industrial environments, but most of them are not environmentally friendly, especially due to the batteries they run on. Researchers in the University of Washington decided to face this problem, and created “MilliMobile” - a miniature robot that runs solely on light or radio waves. These robots can inspect areas around them for certain dangers that might happen on cites, and even create networks of these microrobots that share information between each other. The surface area has been “scaled down to one centimeter squared,” claims the research team. “MilliMobile can drive on surfaces such as concrete or packed soil and carry three times its own weight in equipment like a camera or sensors.”
Source: Paul G. Allen School
Both of the aforementioned machines are about the size of a centimeter squared, but prepare for something even smaller! This OMNIVISION camera is about three times smaller; it was even announced as the Guiness record holder for the smallest image sensor commercially available!
Source: ovt.com
The camera has a 120-degree field view and can make 200 x 200 resolution images with the focus ranging from 3 to 30 millimeters. This camera is designed to be used for surgeries in order to take precise images inside of the human body. The device “offers low power consumption of 25 mW, generating less heat for better patient comfort,” says ovt.com.
And that’s not all, a lot of other technologies today are breaking the size limit. Not just cameras and space shuttles, but also computers, microchips and surgery robots. If you want to see other miniature devices, you can also look into the pangolin-like robot!
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