ABSTRACT
Robots at very small spatial scales have captured popular imagina-
tion since the 1960s, when the science fiction film Fantastic Voyage showedmicroscopic agents operating in the human vascular system
to eradicate a tumor. Today, nanorobotics is no longer in the realm of
science fiction. It is an emerging field that encompasses:
• Programmable assembly of nanoscale components (i) by manipulation with scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) (or
other robotic devices), (ii) by passive self-assembly, or (iii)
by active self-assembly of robotic components
• Design and fabrication of nanorobots with overall dimensions at or below the micrometer range and made of
nanoscopic components
• Programming and coordination of large numbers of such nanorobots
In this chapter I discuss briefly the state of the art in all of
these aspects of nanorobotics. An earlier review of nanorobotics
appeared in [Requicha (2003)]. I would like to begin by presenting
as motivation for this field a “nanorobotics manifesto” I wrote in the
late 1990s and that has been available in the University of Southern
California (USC’s) Laboratory for Molecular Robotics (LMR) website
since then. Here it is, nearly verbatim:
“The microelectronics revolution of the past decades has had a
profound effect on the way we live and is responsible in no small
measure for the prosperity of many regions of the world. It has been
a major factor in the development of computer science and in the
important role that computer science plays today. The next frontier
in miniaturization is nanotechnology. Its effects are likely to be
evenmoremarked than those of its microscale counterpart, because
the atoms and molecules that form all matter have dimensions on
the nanoscale. Nanotechnology promises to give us unprecedented
control over the structure of matter, thus leading to small, fast, and
cheap devices with new functionalities and to materials with novel
properties.”
