Microrobots have the potential to dramatically change many aspects of medicine by navigating through bodily fluids to perform targeted diagnosis and therapy. Researchers have proposed numerous micro-robotic swimming methods, with the vast majority utilizing magnetic fields to wirelessly power and control the microrobot. In this paper, we compare three promising methods of microrobot swimming (using magnetic fields to rotate helical propellers that mimic bacterial flagella, using magnetic fields to oscillate a magnetic head with a rigidly attached elastic tail, and pulling directly with magnetic field gradients) considering practical hardware limitations in the generation of magnetic fields. We find that helical propellers and elastic tails have very comparable performance, and they generally become more desirable than gradient pulling as size decreases and as distance from the magnetic-field-generation source increases. We provide a discussion of why helical propellers are likely the best overall choice for in vivo applications.
How should microrobots swim? / J.J. Abbott, K.E. Peyer, M. Cosentino Lagomarsino, L. Zhang, L. Dong, I.K. Kaliakatsos, B.J. Nelson. - In: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBOTICS RESEARCH. - ISSN 0278-3649. - 28:11-12(2009), pp. 1434-1447. ((Intervento presentato al 13. convegno International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISSR) tenutosi a Hiroshima nel 2007 [10.1177/0278364909341658].
How should microrobots swim?
M. Cosentino Lagomarsino;
2009
Abstract
Microrobots have the potential to dramatically change many aspects of medicine by navigating through bodily fluids to perform targeted diagnosis and therapy. Researchers have proposed numerous micro-robotic swimming methods, with the vast majority utilizing magnetic fields to wirelessly power and control the microrobot. In this paper, we compare three promising methods of microrobot swimming (using magnetic fields to rotate helical propellers that mimic bacterial flagella, using magnetic fields to oscillate a magnetic head with a rigidly attached elastic tail, and pulling directly with magnetic field gradients) considering practical hardware limitations in the generation of magnetic fields. We find that helical propellers and elastic tails have very comparable performance, and they generally become more desirable than gradient pulling as size decreases and as distance from the magnetic-field-generation source increases. We provide a discussion of why helical propellers are likely the best overall choice for in vivo applications.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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