Micro-robots are moving a step closer to real-world use as several new peer-reviewed studies published in 2024 and 2025 report advances in propulsion, power delivery, and in-vivo navigation—longstanding bottlenecks that have limited the field to controlled laboratory tests.
One of the most cited developments comes from Cornell University, where optical microrobots powered by on-chip photovoltaics demonstrated improved untethered motion when steered by focused laser light. The system, developed by the Paul McEuen and Itai Cohen groups and reported in Science Robotics and Nature, shows how cell-scale robots can operate without wired power or bulky magnetic equipment. At the University of Pennsylvania, researchers in the GRASP Lab have advanced magnetically actuated micro-swimmers capable of navigating viscous fluid channels with greater stability than earlier designs. Their 2024 Science Robotics paper details improved steering precision using rotating magnetic fields—an increment that brings microrobots closer to functioning in complex biological environments.
Biomedical applications remain a driving force. Multiple groups, including teams at ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, have recently demonstrated micro-scale devices performing targeted transport tasks in animal models. None of these platforms are approved for human clinical use, but early in-vivo studies show controlled motion with minimal tissue disruption.
Environmental testing is also expanding, primarily through lab-based micro-swarm prototypes for pollutant sensing and microplastic capture. Despite momentum, major hurdles persist: power constraints, long-term biocompatibility, and the difficulty of manufacturing large, coordinated swarms. Still, the growing volume of reproducible results suggests micro-robotics is shifting from speculative prototypes toward application-driven systems with implications for medicine, environmental monitoring, and materials inspection.
