Gelatin:-
Gelatin or gelatine is a transparent, colourless and tasteless food ingredient that is made from collagen derived from different animal body parts. If it is dried, it is breakable while if moist it has sticky nature. It is known as hydrolysed collagen, under the process of hydrolysis peptide of collagen are formed. It is used for many purposes like used as a gelling agent in food, medicines, drugs and vitamins capsules. Moreover, it is used in different cosmetics due to its gummy nature, in photographic films and papers as well.
Those substances which contain gelatine as a substitute are known as gelatinous substances. Once collagen is hydrolysed, gelatin is formed that is an irreversible process as hydrolysis converts protein fibrils into smaller peptide, so the weight of gelatin is reduced as compared to the original weight of collagen due to degeneration of proteins. It is available in different form according to online essay writing service, in powder form for cooking purposes. Most gummy candies substitute gelatin in them.
Robots made up of gelatin:-
The most common use of gelatin is the production of robots with gelatin material mixed with other edible items. These are made for specific purposes. Gelatin enables these robots to become edible for its host. Now at present, soft and edible robots are created which look like real organisms. These robots are mainly used for delivery of drugs to animals. These are biologically degradable robots.
Constraints of Edible robots:-
Degeneration reliability of these edible robots is still questioned in laboratories. Mr. Martin Kalten brunner at Johannes Kepler University Linz in Austria said that we could not say how reliable these edible robots are in the aspect of degradation in the body of animals. We have to discover any material that has the potential to degrade completely triggered with gelatin.
Kalten brunner with his colleagues experimented the formation of some ingredients that are safe to eat and procure no difficulty to the body, including gelatin and citric acid which is helpful in the prevention of bacterial growth, along-with glycerol for the prevention of dehydration and softness of drug.
Benefits of Gelatin made robots:-
Scientists has now created bio-gels which are made by gelatin for bacteria consumption that are found in wastewaters. It will kill those harmful bacteria and prevent our land from contamination.
In labs, researchers have shown that gelatin does not loose it’s any property before one year; it means it does not dry out before one year. It makes it uses more time elapsing for different purposes.
An elephant’s trunk shape robot:-
Recently, scientists have made a robot that looks like a trunk of an elephant accurately. They made it enable to complete 330,000 cycles of non-stop movements without breaking or drying out its shape.
For feedback and control of this robot, they have assembled sensors with it to function appropriately. A toy elephant robot is also made from gelatin which includes a pressure sensor. It can capture thing with its trunk if commanded.
Application of edible robotics:-
As we know, gelatin is edible, safe to eat and biologically degradable in the body. It can help us a lot by a method to administrate drugs to different animals in the shape of their preys or food. However, electronic instruments and sensors are not edible.
In Switzerland, Mr. Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne said, “Gelatin has beneficial effects due to its versatility, ease of manufacturing and low cost as compared to those of other biodegradable elastic materials.”
In Switzerland, Scientists have made a lot of gelatin-based robots that are used to be eaten by humans and animals for specific purposes. There is now a multitude of new applications for robotics in the body.
One more important function of these robots is to study the endangered species’ movement patterns. These serve as a medicine to heal their injuries.
Now in the field of soft robotics, scientists have developed more flexible robots that are cable of more extension, contraction and bending to work input. These robots might make our life and work more efficient. They developed soft robots which are capable of capturing and lifting frail objects. For example, they have built robots for the packaging of fruits by picking and moving them from one place to another place.
The Swiss scientists have developed ingestible control devices as robots. They mentioned many benefits of soft robotics as following:
The main task is to heal inside the human body. In a survival situation, these can be a source of food and energy for the body. Serve as a prey to the animals, which helps to observe their hunting behaviour. These can save endangered species from being ingested and help to record their behaviour at different stages.
A robot as a food:-
A device that controls robots by a given mechanism is known as an actuator. These are a conductor of electricity and mostly made by silicone.
A research conducted in Switzerland shows, when gelatin is combined with glycerol or glycerin and alcohol, it becomes a conductor for electricity. Moreover, when glycerin is added to gelatin, it enhances the elasticity resulting in increased capability of bending and contraction.
Hence, scientists made edible actuators for soft robots by mixing glycerin and gelatin into a mould in the presence of water. Then dried it at room temperature. A soft, elastic and edible actuator was formed. Laterally they used these actuators with soft edible robots to control their mode of action.
Now it is a new invention in the field of soft robotics, and these can be administrated to animals in the shape prey liked by them as a food source with a proper control system. Some can be used to deliver drugs at specific points as they can crawl around in the body and move to the intestine for delivery of medicine. Actuators will control this movement. When the medication is reached to its targeted location, the actuators will also be degraded.
Now, pills with ingestible sensors are available in the market that have robot sensors inside and go to the target site and then hold their work. Moreover, cameras that are small enough to engulf are transmitted to the digestive tract with these robots in the body to detect abnormalities like bleeding etc.