The new center includes six bays for testing and showcasing robots for Stanford Engineering faculty. Karen Liu, a professor of computer science, said in a post on Stanford's website that the research takes place side-by-side in an open space, fostering more research collaboration across the board.

One particular area of interest at Stanford comes in the field of soft robotics. Researchers want to explore this for the purpose of minimally invasive surgery.

"We're interested in soft systems because in soft systems, you essentially have infinite degrees of freedom -- every single material point can deform," said Renee Zhao, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. "It's better at interacting with human beings because we have soft tissues."

Stanford describes the robots developed by Zhao as "origami-like," made from soft plastic and magnets. Her designs take inspiration from animal movements, the article says. Those include the movements of an octopus arm, elephant trunk and an inching earthworm.

The latest soft robotics technology to come from Zhao's engineering lab looks like a swimming, pill-sized cylinder with a propeller. Zhao used a polymer replica of the brain's blood vessels to test whether the swimmer could navigate through the vasculature to shrink a blood clot and treat stroke. Researchers used a joystick to move the robot through a magnetic field.

Zhao believes doctors could potentially track the robot through X-rays, allowing them to guide it to a blood clot.

"One of the biggest challenges for procedures using interventional radiology is the trackability and navigation capability," Zhao said. "We want to revolutionize the existing minimally invasive surgery."