The successful development of a self-powered wheeled robot driven by liquid metal can inspire a new method of fixing problems of traditional mechanisms, as well as promote the development of micro robots and special robots, according to a press release sent to Global Times by the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) on Tuesday.
The joint research group has made progress on the functions of liquid metal droplets and applications to robot in recent years.
The group reported the development of a novel controllable untethered vehicle driven by electrically actuated liquid metal droplets in the journal IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics in September.
China became the largest market for industrial robots in 2013. In 2017, sales of China's industrial robots hit $4.22 billion, up 24 percent year-on-year, while sales of service robots reached 1.32 billion dollars, up 28 percent, the Xinhua News Agency reported in May.
This article was originally published in Global Times
