2018/07/25 by Berk Yigit, Yigit, Berk, Yunus Alapan +3 · 1 voice
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Micro and Nano Robotics #Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence #Molecular Communication and Nanonetworks #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1807.09702
openalex publication_date 2018/07/25 · arxiv published 2018/07/25 · arxiv updated 2018/07/25 · openalex created_date 2022/08/04 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their\npotential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical\ndiagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and\nremediation. Lack of on-board computational and sensing capabilities in current\nmicrorobotic systems necessitates use of physical interactions among individual\nmicrorobots for local physical communication and cooperation. Here, we show\nthat mobile microrobotic swarms with well-defined collective behavior can be\ndesigned by engineering magnetic interactions among individual units.\nMicrorobots, consisting of a linear chain of self-assembled magnetic\nmicroparticles, locomote on surfaces in response to a precessing magnetic\nfield. Control over the direction of precessing magnetic field allows\nengineering attractive and repulsive interactions among microrobots and, thus,\ncollective order with well-defined spatial organization and parallel operation\nover macroscale distances (~1 cm). These microrobotic swarms can be guided\nthrough confined spaces, while preserving microrobot morphology and function.\nThese swarms can further achieve directional transport of large cargoes on\nsurfaces and small cargoes in bulk fluids. Described design approach,\nexploiting physical interactions among individual robots, enables facile and\nrapid formation of self-organized and reconfigurable microrobotic swarms with\nprogrammable collective order.\n