RI: Bacteria Assisted Propulsion of Swimming Micro-Robots

本项目研究细菌辅助推进混合（生物/非生物）游泳微型机器人作为一种新型微型机器人驱动方法。无机微型机器人机体是由附着在其上的细菌等微生物的螺旋鞭毛推动的。原核细菌将通过开/关速度控制，强大而高效地推动微型机器人机体。通过提供和控制细菌所需的生化能源和环境条件，从细菌中获取运动动力源和驱动。这项工作的研究突破是将自然界中已经存在的纳米级机器（即鞭毛）与微尺度机器人身体耦合在一起。本研究为微型游泳机器人开发了新的驱动原理和设计方法，将推动微型机器人领域的发展。此外，我们对生物和非生物物体相互作用的理解将得到改善。提出了三个研究目标：1)将细菌整合到无机微型机器人体内；2)开/关机器人推进速度控制；3)鞭毛推进的建模与表征。这个项目中高度跨学科的研究工作将转移到机器人和工程的许多教育活动中。它将支持从女学生和代表性不足的少数民族中挑选的研究生，并对代表性不足的少数民族本科生进行培训。

This project investigates bacteria assisted propulsion of a hybrid (biotic/abiotic) swimming micro-robot as a novel micro-robot actuation approach. An inorganic micro-robot body is propelled by the helical flagella of microorganisms such as bacteria attached to it. Prokaryotic bacteria will propel a micro-robot body robustly and efficiently with on/off speed control. The motility power source and actuation will be harvested from the bacteria by supplying and controlling the required biochemical energy source and environmental conditions to them. The research breakthrough of this work is the coupling of the nanoscale machine already in nature (i.e., the flagella) to microscale robotic bodies. This work would advance the micro-robotics field by developing this new actuation principle and design methodology for micro-scale swimming robots. Moreover, our understanding of biotic and abiotic object interactions would be improved. Three research objectives are proposed: 1) Integration of bacteria to an inorganic micro-robot body; 2) On/off robot propulsion speed control; 3) Modeling and characterization of flagellar propulsion. Highly interdisciplinary research work in this project would be transferred to many educational activities in robotics and engineering. It would support graduate students whom would be chosen from female students and underrepresented minorities, and underrepresented minority undergraduate students would be trained.