Seoul National University

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No really, Jinseok Kim's robot has a heart! The Korean researcher and his colleagues have developed a robot that is powered not by a battery but living heart muscle. The microbot is built by growing heart tissue onto a tiny skeleton structure consisting of three strips of a special polymer that are bound to form six legs. When the microbot is placed in a solution containing glucose, the sugar that powers us humans, the heart muscle contracts and relaxes resulting in the bending and relaxing of its legs. The robot which measures about 1.5mm in length can walk continuously for 10 days at a pace of 0.1mm/s. Locomotion is achieved because of the asymmetry in the length of the front and rear legs (video above).The researchers envision injecting these robots into our bodies to clear vessel blockage but one can also imagine letting these robots loose into our bodies to help diagnose health problems. This is not the first time that a robot powered by heart muscle has been built. In 2004, a UCLA team led by Carlos Montemagno developed the first robot powered by living heart muscle.

Kim's microbot is about 1.5mm long and If you're interested in reading the details, see the Korean team's research paper here. Kim is a researcher at KIST and Seoul National University.