There are many potential applications of nanorobots in a wide array of fields and industries. Perhaps the most commonly cited and most exciting possible uses is in the biomedical field, where they present opportunities for new methods of drug delivery, treatment of illnesses at a molecular level, and for rebuilding damaged tissue. There are also potential construction and engineering uses of nanorobots, in which they may be used to build other small devices and perform miniscule repairs. Potential military uses of these robots as weapons have also been considered and could be catastrophic.
Nanorobots are robots designed at an incredibly small scale, making them similar in size to molecules. One of the most common types of uses for these robots would be in the development of new treatments in medicine and other biological applications. The incredibly small size of these robots would allow them to be deployed within a person’s body and apply treatments at the molecular level.
One of the most exciting possible applications for nanorobots is in the delivery of medication in a more precise way. Pills could be swallowed containing molecular robots that deliver medication directly to the area of injury or illness. Other machines could be used to target harmful cells or viruses in a person’s body and either destroy them or otherwise make them unable to damage a person. There are even possible applications in which nanorobots could be used to help mend or repair damaged tissue within a person’s body.
Some scientists have speculated opportunities in which nanorobots could be used in construction and engineering. These tiny robots could be used to create more complex miniscule devices or objects, or to perform especially delicate repairs on small systems. One possible use could be the inclusion of these kinds of robots in the suits of future astronauts on missions on other planets, which could be deployed in case of an emergency to repair damage to the astronaut’s suit.
There are also some less beneficial possibilities for the use of nanorobots, especially in military and weapons applications. In theory, it would be just as easy to program a nanorobot to find cancerous cells within a person’s body and deactivate them as it would be to program it to find healthy cells and activate them. Nanorobots could potentially be used as a weapon, deployed much like a biological agent, to destroy people or objects at a molecular level. The miniscule size of these robots would also make them extremely hard to detect after such an attack.