Scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong have developed a way to get nanoparticles to group and move as swarms, similar to how hundreds of bees and birds can fly together. The technology may have implications for medicine, helping to guide nanoparticles toward certain organs or sites of cancer.

Researchers developed a new way to manage the collective movement of nanorobots. (No, not through mind control—though how awesome would that be?) A team from the Chinese University of Hong Kong applied swarm behaviors to small-scale bots, allowing “controlled morphological changes and splitting.”

In the future, nanobots will save lives. Scientists from Hong Kong have made a breakthrough in controlling swarms of minuscule robots to treat blood clots. A team of scientists has designed and implemented a strategy using oscillating magnetic fields to "reconfigure paramagnetic nanoparticles into ribbon-like swarms."

Led by Associate Professor Li Zhang, a team of scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong designed and implemented a strategy of using oscillating magnetic fields to create highly reconfigurable ribbon-like swarms of nano-robots, millions of magnetic nanoparticles each less than one micron wide, or one-fifth the length of a red blood cell.

Researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong developed a new way of controlling nano-robots, making them capable of doing complex tasks in minimally invasive surgeries, the finding was announced here Thursday.  Led by Zhang Li, associate professor of the university's Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, the team has implemented swarm behaviors on nano-robots, allowing controlled morphological changes and splitting.

在自然界中我們不難見到動物如螞蟻集體行動，香港中文大學有研究團隊因此受啟發，成功將動物集體行動的特性引入納米機械人，並轉變其形態和將其分裂，這種技術有望於日後用作治療中風，有關研究已在國際科學期刊Nature Communications發表。

中大機械與自動化工程學系副教授張立表示，過去看到校園內，螞蟻群爬樹的群體行為，觸發將動物群體行為引入納米機械人中。經歷約10個月的研究實驗，利用動態自組技術，成功將幾百萬個分散的磁性納米粒子組裝成可控的人工微型群體。並透過調節磁場的振幅和頻率，控制它們進行多種形態變化，包括伸長和縮短、分裂和融合。