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Magnetic microbot-based micromanipulation of surrogate biological objects in fluidic channels

Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

We report automated nonprehensile magnetic micromanipulation of surrogate biological objects in the presence of a fluid flow. We utilise ferromagnetic microparticles (in the size range of 200 - 350 μm) as microbots and silica beads (having size range of 150 - 350 μm) as surrogate biological objects. The microbot is actuated using magnetic field generated by a set of electromagnetic coils placed in a quadrupole configuration and manipulated using a proportional controller developed for the purpose. We deploy a feedback-based manoeuvre planner that invokes one of the five motion manoeuvres, namely, Arrest, Approach, Align, Push, and Home, based on the instantaneous locations of the microbot, target object, and goal location, for automated nonprehensile manipulation of the target objects. Using this protocol we demonstrate the sorting of surrogate biological objects in a bifurcated fluidic channel. The developed system can be utilised to study the useful properties of large microscopic biological objects in an ambient fluid-flow environment. The demonstrated synergy between microrobotics and microfluidics has tremendous scope for applications in key areas including soft-matter science, cell biology and cancer research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Patna, 801106, Bihar, India

    Dharmveer Agarwal & Atul Thakur

  2. Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Patna, 801106, Bihar, India

    Ajay D. Thakur

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  1. Dharmveer Agarwal
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  2. Ajay D. Thakur
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  3. Atul Thakur
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Correspondence to Atul Thakur.

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Agarwal, D., Thakur, A.D. & Thakur, A. Magnetic microbot-based micromanipulation of surrogate biological objects in fluidic channels. J Micro-Bio Robot (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12213-022-00151-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12213-022-00151-4

Keywords

  • Flow manipulation
  • Nonprehensile manipulation
  • Magnetic manipulation
  • Selective manipulation
  • Micromanipulation
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