Nanotechnology gives rise to the field of Nanorobotics, which involves the design and manufacture of devices at the nanoscale level. Nanorobots refer to robotic devices that have components sized between 1 to 100 nanometers. At this scale, nanotechnology offers scientists and engineers the ability to build robots molecule by molecule, atom by atom.

Types of Nanorobots
There are several types of nanobots that could potentially be developed as the field continues to advance:

Mobile Nanorobots
Mobile nanorobots are designed to move and navigate within a surrounding environment or material. These robots could be as small as viruses or bacteria at around 20-400 nanometers in size. At the nanoscale, movement and locomotion present unique challenges that researchers are working to overcome, such as how to efficiently power movement and propel robots through viscous fluids. Some concepts involve mobile nanobots using flagella for propulsion or amoeba-like pseudopods.

Assembly Nanobots
Assembly nanobots focus on constructing intricate materials, devices, and systems through atomic-level manufacturing. They would precisely arrange and join atoms and molecules via mechanical and chemical processes. This could enable the assembly of various materials with controllable properties. Assembly nanobots are envisioned to work together in huge swarms to perform parallel construction tasks through self-assembly.

Medical Nanobots
Medical nanobots offer promising applications for targeted drug delivery, molecular diagnostics, and nanosurgery. These nanobots could circulate within the bloodstream, tissues, and organs to identify problems and accurately treat issues at the cellular level. Examples include nanobots ferrying therapeutic agents to tumor sites, assembling tissues and bones, or detecting and removing plaque from arteries. Researchers are studying how medical nanobots can make minimally invasive procedures much more precise and reduce healing times.

Sensor Nanobots
Sensor nanobots are designed to gather information about their surrounding environment at the molecular scale. Equipped with various nanosensors, they could map out biological processes, chemical compositions, electromagnetic fields, pressures, and temperatures atom by atom. Aggregating this molecular data could give unprecedented insights across many domains like material science, biomedical research, and environmental monitoring. Swarms of sensor nanobots working together vastly multiply data collection abilities.

Challenges and Potential Benefits of Nanorobotics
While the field of robotics holds revolutionary possibilities, there are still major technical challenges that researchers must overcome:

Power at the Nanoscale
Powering nanoscale devices poses significant difficulties compared to larger robots. Chemical fuels become less energetic at the nanoscale and are more challenging to contain and control. Batteries also face miniaturization issues, and harnessing energy from the local environment continues to be explored as an alternative approach. Without sufficient onboard power, nanorobots cannot perform complex movements or operate for meaningful time periods.

Control and Communication
Coordination and commanding individual nanorobots or swarms over distances present difficult hurdles. Nanoscale wireless communication and control mechanisms must be developed that do not interfere with biological or chemical processes. This will allow remote operation of nanorobots without wires or continuous supervision. Researchers are investigating Molecular Communication as a promising strategy.

Materials and Manufacturing
Current microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems fabrication techniques do not scale well for mass producing nanorobots. New atomically-precise manufacturing approaches are required to construct complex nanorobotic systems with integrated sensors, actuators, circuits and other nanocomponents. Biomimetic self-assembly could be a key enabling technology.

Despite the challenges, nanorobotics promises extraordinary advancements if these issues can be resolved. Potential societal benefits include personalized medicine, targeted pollution remediation, biomaterial synthesis, disease detection, molecular manufacturing and more. On the industrial front, nanorobots may assemble atomically-precise structures, machines and devices not possible today. Realizing this vision will depend on further refinements to nanotechnology, materials science and robotics made through dedicated research efforts.

Overall, nanorobotics represents an nascent yet profoundly promising field at the intersection of multiple technologies. Through the integration of nanoscale engineering with robotics principles, researchers are working to develop functional robotic devices just billionths of a meter in size. Successfully addressing challenges in areas like power, sensing, mobility, communication and manufacturing could enable nanorobots to revolutionize fields from healthcare to manufacturing. While significant hurdles still exist, the expanding capabilities of nanotechnology bring the prospect of "nanobots" ever closer to reality. With further innovative research, nanorobotics may one day achieve feats only possible through molecular manipulation.  

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