Nanorobotics for advancing biomedicine: Advances in Materials, design, fabrication, opportunities and health risks

Abstract

Advances in medical robots promise to improve modern medicine and the quality of life. Nanorobotics is the field of inventing machines or robots at or close to microscopic scale of a nanometer (m). Miniaturization of these robotic platforms has led to numerous applications that leverages precision medicine.There is immense spectrum of possible applications of these devices ranging from environmental remediation to the biomedical field. The materials used and their respective fabrication methods and their specific application plays an important role in the future of these technologies. In the review we have discussed the emerging materials and their process used in the fabrication of the nanorobot. We have covered most accepted fabrication techniques that have been discussed in this research domain. Apart from the materials, design methodology also plays a very important role in the field of nanorobotics. The design of nanorobots is basically inspired by modeling mechanical structures, bionics and bio-syncretic designs. Various design and fabrication techniques of nanorobot have been explained in this review journal along with their working principle. The structural characteristics is followed by the principles of working of the nanorobots in general and in specific situations. The biomedical applications of the nanorobots in diagnosis, sensing, microsurgery targeted drug/cell delivery and wound healing are reviewed from the above view point.