Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Research and the Harvard C A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed robots which are able to move within a magnetic field without using batteries or power supplies , according to an article in Science Robotics . The plastic devices are made of a shape - memory material which contracts when heated and expands when cool , with the temperature being controlled by an external coil . By changing the frequency of the external magnetic field, they were able to induce each SMA coil to contract independently from the others. The team built several sizes of robot to demonstrate ease of scalability .
Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Research and the Harvard C A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed robots which are able to move within a magnetic field without using batteries or power supplies , according to an article in Science Robotics . The plastic devices are made of a shape - memory material which contracts when heated and expands when cool , with the temperature being controlled by an external coil . The team built several sizes of robot to demonstrate ease of scalability .