A bee with a sensor attached
B. Greich, I. Schmaerle, T. Nielsen, and J. Lafmer, Philips Research Hamburg, Germany
Tiny sensors act like high-tech backpacks for bees, tracking their position and temperature as they fly around. The sensor is so small that it can even be injected into a person’s body to monitor what’s going on inside.
Bernhard Greich and his colleagues at the Philips Research Institute in Hamburg, Germany, used two small opposing magnetic spheres in a cylindrical housing to create a one-millimetre-sized sensor.
To wirelessly check the state of the sensor, the researchers remotely excited the magnet with current pulses from an electromagnetic coil. The distance between the magnets, how much the magnets vibrate, and how much they stretch helps the team measure the sensor’s temperature, pressure, and position.
In one experiment, researchers dropped a sensor into a long, winding tube to mimic the digestive tract. We then recorded its path and position in 3D.
Next, the research team attached a sensor to the back of the bee. The researchers tracked the bees as they flitted and walked upside down inside a box decorated with meadow flowers, and were able to recreate the bee’s position and flight path.
Researchers have implanted the sensor in a person’s heart to measure arterial blood pressure, stuck it in a tumor to monitor its condition, swallowed it like a pill to measure the health of the gastrointestinal tract, and then expelled it. I think it can be applied to A few days later.
Devices already exist for each of these medical tasks, but this sensor is particularly small and wireless. “Device deployment is much less stressful and much less costly. [than other devices]says Jürgen Lamer, another Philips Research team member.
It’s an “interesting little device,” says Peter Dobson of the University of Oxford. However, he says it’s still in the early stages of development.
The research team estimates that it will take another five to eight years for the application to pass clinical trials and reach the front lines. “We’re now trying to get this closer to product,” Dahmer says. “That means the demonstrator has to be smaller, more reliable and user-friendly.
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