Having downloaded the blueprint for the gears, a company can design as few or as many intermeshing transmission systems as needed merely by duplicating and moving the basic gear arrangement. This can be done cheaply and easily on commonly available computer automated design programs. But since the assembly is modular, they can easily do as little or as much as they'd like. Sandia in the recent past has licensed micromachine technology to private industry to build cheaper, more effective air bag sensors in cars, as well as to create newer anti-skid technologies than those currently being developed in the auto industry. The gear wheels are each about the diameter of a human hair.
Power is needed to overcome that resistance.
The new device also should benefit basic engineering research, says Sniegowski. To study how these effects and others operate, you've got to be able to apply a significant level of force. Now we can apply these forces in fundamental tests to determine qualities such as a micromaterial's fracture strength. Another peculiarity of the microrealm is the difficulty of developing a clutch to change gears. In automobile transmissions, gears keep turning through inertia when a clutch disengages, and so synchronization with a replacement gear is possible.