While some robots are getting closer to us, others are going the opposite way - instead of large, visible, humanoid machines, scientists are creating robots so small they can only be seen with microscopes.

An international group of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the University of Michigan and Cornell University developed swarms of microrobots capable of moving objects up to 45,000 times heavier than themselves, without even touching them.

Each robot measures around 300 micrometers, about the size of a grain of salt. Alone they can do almost nothing, but together they create something completely new. Instead of pushing or pulling, these micro robots use fluid torque, a hydrodynamic phenomenon in which movement in the surrounding liquid generates enough force to manipulate objects at a distance.

When exposed to an external magnetic field, the small cylinders begin to spin, that spinning creates microscopic eddies in the fluid around them and when tens of 200 spin at the same time, those currents combine into an extremely powerful collective force.

The researchers managed to rotate gears, or see structures and assemble parts without direct physical contact, only by controlling the magnetic field that coordinates hunger and in one of the tests, the group managed to rotate a three-dimensional object with a weight more than 45,000 times greater than the mass of a single robot.

This is not only impressive, it is a new form of engineering, according to scientists, fluid torque allows you to manipulate delicate objects that would be impossible to touch with traditional tools, especially on microscopic scales and that is exactly where the applications start to get really interesting.

In manufacturing, swarms like this could assemble tiny electronic components with extreme precision, in medicine they could navigate inside the human body, transport medications, collect samples, or even perform procedures without surgery; Since these burglaries do not require touching the object, they can work in environments where any physical contact would be dangerous or destructive.

The experiments also showed that the swarm can reorganize itself by changing formation, altering speed, and adjusting the movement pattern depending on the task. This change in scale shows that technology is not evolving in just one direction. it grows downward, it becomes microscopic, but it also grows upward and begins to transform the way we move through the world.