Abstract
Swimming microrobots have a variety of applications including drug delivery, sensing, and artificial fertilization. Their small size makes onboard actuation very hard, and therefore an external source such as the magnetic field is a practical way to steer and move the robot. In this paper, we have designed a novel microrobot steered by magnetic paddles. We have also discussed design parameters where, based on the conducted simulation, the robot speed reaches 520 um/s. It is shown that the microrobot speed depends on the robot paddle dimensions. According to the microrobots motion characteristics and their different reactions to the same input, we have designed a steering strategy for point-to-point control of multiple microrobots.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kong L, Guan J, Pumera M (2018) Micro-and nanorobots based sensing and biosensing. Curr Opin Electrochem 10:174–182
Kim K, Guo J, Liang Z, Fan D (2018) Artificial micro/nanomachines for bioapplications: biochemical delivery and diagnostic sensing. Adv Funct Mater 28(25):1705867
Jeon S, Hoshiar AK, Kim K, Lee S, Kim E, Lee S, Kim JY, Nelson BJ, Cha HJ, Yi BJ, Choi H (2019) A magnetically controlled soft microrobot steering a guidewire in a three-dimensional phantom vascular network. Soft robotics 6(1):54–68
Pedram A, Nejat Pishkenari H (2017) Smart micro/nano-robotic systems for gene delivery. Current gene therapy 17(2):73–79
Le VH et al (2018) Preparation of tumor targeting cell-based microrobots carrying NIR light sensitive therapeutics manipulated by electromagnetic actuating system and Chemotaxis. Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics 14(3–4):69–77
Yang S, Xu Q (2017) A review on actuation and sensing techniques for MEMS-based microgrippers. Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics 13(1–4):1–14
Purcell EM (1977) Life at low Reynolds number. Am J Phys 45(1):3–11
Zhang, J, M Salehizadeh, and E Diller (2018). Parallel pick and place using two independent untethered mobile magnetic microgrippers. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE
Jalali, MA, M-R Alam, and S Mousavi (2014). Quadroar: a versatile low-Reynolds-number swimmer. arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.5428
Mirzakhanloo M, Jalali MA, Alam M-R (2018) Hydrodynamic choreographies of microswimmers. Sci Rep 8(1):3670
Saadat, M, et al. (2019), The experimental realization of an artificial low-reynolds-number swimmer with three-dimensional maneuverability. arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.05893
Peyer KE, Zhang L, Nelson BJ (2013) Bio-inspired magnetic swimming microrobots for biomedical applications. Nanoscale 5(4):1259–1272
Halder A, Sun Y (2019) Biocompatible propulsion for biomedical micro/nano robotics. Biosens Bioelectron 139:111334
Chen XZ, Jang B, Ahmed D, Hu C, de Marco C, Hoop M, Mushtaq F, Nelson BJ, Pané S (2018) Small-scale machines driven by external power sources. Adv Mater 30(15):1705061
Chen C, Chen L, Wang P, Wu LF, Song T (2019) Steering of magnetotactic bacterial microrobots by focusing magnetic field for targeted pathogen killing. J Magn Magn Mater 479:74–83
Zhang L, Abbott JJ, Dong L, Kratochvil BE, Bell D, Nelson BJ (2009) Artificial bacterial flagella: Fabrication and magnetic control. Appl Phys Lett 94(6):064107
Ghanbari A, Bahrami M, Nobari M (2011) Methodology for artificial microswimming using magnetic actuation. Phys Rev E 83(4):046301
Khalil IS et al (2014) MagnetoSperm: a microrobot that navigates using weak magnetic fields. Appl Phys Lett 104(22):223701
Kim S, Lee S, Lee J, Nelson BJ, Zhang L, Choi H (2016) Fabrication and manipulation of ciliary microrobots with non-reciprocal magnetic actuation. Sci Rep 6:30713
Meng F, Matsunaga D, Yeomans JM, Golestanian R (2019) Magnetically-actuated artificial cilium: a simple theoretical model. Soft Matter 15(19):3864–3871
Shum H (2019) Microswimmer propulsion by two steadily rotating helical flagella. Micromachines 10(1):65
Chowdhury S, Jing W, Cappelleri DJ (2015) Controlling multiple microrobots: recent progress and future challenges. Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics 10(1–4):1–11
Pawashe C, Floyd S, Sitti M (2009) Multiple magnetic microrobot control using electrostatic anchoring. Appl Phys Lett 94(16):164108
Wong D, Steager EB, Kumar V (2016) Independent control of identical magnetic robots in a plane. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 1(1):554–561
Ongaro F et al (2018) Design of an Electromagnetic Setup for independent three-dimensional control of pairs of identical and nonidentical microrobots. IEEE Trans Robot 35(1):174–183
Diller E et al (2011) Control of multiple heterogeneous magnetic microrobots in two dimensions on nonspecialized surfaces. IEEE Trans Robot 28(1):172–182
Huang T-Y, Qiu F, Tung HW, Peyer KE, Shamsudhin N, Pokki J, Zhang L, Chen XB, Nelson BJ, Sakar MS (2014) Cooperative manipulation and transport of microobjects using multiple helical microcarriers. RSC Adv 4(51):26771–26776
Kei Cheang U, Lee K, Julius AA, Kim MJ (2014) Multiple-robot drug delivery strategy through coordinated teams of microswimmers. Appl Phys Lett 105(8):083705
Das S, Steager EB, Hsieh MA, Stebe KJ, Kumar V (2018) Experiments and open-loop control of multiple catalytic microrobots. Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics 14(1–2):25–34
Huang TY, Sakar MS, Mao A, Petruska AJ, Qiu F, Chen XB, Kennedy S, Mooney D, Nelson BJ (2015) 3D printed microtransporters: compound micromachines for spatiotemporally controlled delivery of therapeutic agents. Adv Mater 27(42):6644–6650
Gueron S, Levit-Gurevich K (1998) Computation of the internal forces in cilia: application to ciliary motion, the effects of viscosity, and cilia interactions. Biophys J 74(4):1658–1676
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Khalesi, R., Nejat Pishkenari, H. & Vossoughi, G. Independent control of multiple magnetic microrobots: design, dynamic modelling, and control. J Micro-Bio Robot 16, 215–224 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12213-020-00136-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12213-020-00136-1