RodBot: A rolling microrobot for micromanipulation

Abstract

We introduce the modelling and control of a rolling microrobot. The microrobot is capable of manipulating micro-objects through the use of a magnetic visual control system. This system consists of a rod-shaped microrobot, a magnetic actuation system and a visual control system. Motion of the rolling microrobot on a supporting surface is induced by a rotating magnetic field. As the robot is submerged in a liquid this motion creates a rising flow in front, a sinking flow behind, and a vortex above the robot, thus enabling non-contact transportation of micro-objects. Besides this fluidvortex approach, the microrobot is also able to manipulate micro-objects via a pushing strategy. We present the design and modelling of the 50×60×300 µm micro-agent, the visual control system, and an experimental analysis of the micromanipulation and control methods.

Model Predictive Control of a Magnetically Guided Rolling Microrobot

“…In this work, we present a MPC approach that deals with the constraints of the microrobotic system, the limitations of the actuation system and the disturbances due to the environment. The microrobot itself was introduced in [15] and analysed in [6]. This latter work showed that with a model-free controller, satisfactory tracking performance can be achieved (i.e.…”

“…The second constraint in (6) gives restrictions on the states. This includes bounding the position of the RodBot as imposed by the borders of the camera image and the avoidance of obstacles (e.g.…”

“…Surface and environmental effects and limitations in actuation disturb the motion control system, while at the same time being difficult to model and compensate for. The reason for this is the complexity of the interaction forces and the uncertainty in estimating their real contribution [5], [6].…”

Magnetic microrobots with addressable shape control

“…A top camera observes the scene and image processing detects the position and orientation of the self-folding microrobot and provides feedback for the visual control system. Details of the visual control system is described in [11]. All the experiments are performed in a glass Petri dish placed in the middle of the workspace, filled with deionized water.…”

Magnetic Actuation Based Motion Control for Microrobots: An Overview

“…Kim et al [87] controlled a rolling spherical magnetic microrobot to follow a pre-defined spiral path. Pieters et al [88] controlled a rolling rod-shaped microrobot to follow a virtual target on a reference path, which is inspired by the trajectory following the control laws of unicycles. The controllers are similar to Controller I in Figure 6.…”