Predictive control of a micro bead's trajectory in a dielectrophoresis-based device

Abstract

Micro and nano-particles can be trapped by a non uniform electric field through the effect of the dielectrophoretic force. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is used to separate, manipulate and sense micro particles in several domains, such as in biological or Carbon Nano-Tubes (CNTs) manipulations. This paper tackles the creation of a closed loop strategy in order to control, using DEP, the trajectory of micro objects using vision feedback. A modeling of the dielectrophoresis force is presented to illustrate the non linearity of the system and the high dynamics of the object under dielectrophoresis . A control strategy based on the generalized predictive control method is proposed with the aim of controlling the trajectory, taking advantage of the high dynamics despite the non linearity. Simulated results are shown to evaluate our control strategy.

Model Predictive Control of a Magnetically Guided Rolling Microrobot

“…Other work considering MPC for microrobotic motion control is as follows. In [10] generalized predictive control (GPC) was used to control the motion of a microbead driven by dielectrophoresis force. Predictive control is of particular interest due to the non-linearity and the high dynamics of the system, which induces high speed motion of the bead compared to the low image capture speed.…”

High speed closed loop control of a dielectrophoresis-based system

“…However, laser trapping induces forces around tens of picoNewtons limiting the achievable throughput. The dielectrophoresis proposed in this paper generate forces around thousand times higher [21], [22]. Providing closed loop control strategies will enable active and reprogrammable trajectory control and guarantee the final position of a manipulated object.…”

Modeling of electrostatic forces induced by chemical surface functionalisation for microrobotics applications

“…Recently several noncontact microrobots have been proposed, they are usually propelled by volume force such as magnetic or dielectrophoresis forces. In these cases, non-contact robots or noncontact manipulation strategies are proposed to avoid the disturbance induced by adhesion [4], [5], [6]. In particular conditions, surface force could also induce repulsive effect in spite of attractive effect (adhesion [7]), and could be exploited in non-contact micro-robots design.…”