RI: Bacteria Assisted Propulsion of Swimming Micro-Robots

本计画研究细菌辅助推进混合（生物/非生物）游动微机器人作为一种新颖的微机器人驱动方法。 无机微机器人主体由附着在其上的微生物（如细菌）的螺旋鞭毛驱动。益生菌将通过开/关速度控制来鲁棒有效地驱动微机器人主体。 通过向细菌供应和控制所需的生化能源和环境条件，将从细菌收获运动动力源和致动。 这项工作的研究突破是自然界中已经存在的纳米机器的耦合（即，鞭毛）到微型机器人身体。 这项工作将推进微机器人领域的发展，这种新的驱动原理和设计方法的微型游泳机器人。 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机器人本体; 2）开/关机器人推进速度控制; 3）鞭毛推进的建模和表征。 该项目中高度跨学科的研究工作将转移到机器人和工程学的许多教育活动中。 它将支持从女生和代表性不足的少数民族中挑选的研究生，并将培训代表性不足的少数民族本科生。

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.