Micro-Robotics for Remote Magnetic Manipulation and Actuation

拟议的研究计划旨在设计和控制用于生物技术、微制造和医疗应用的微型机器人组。这种微型机器人系统使用能够远程施加磁力和力矩到亚毫米微型制造机器人的磁线圈系统来控制和供电。微型机器人系统由于其体积小以及并行或分布式操作的能力，有望以非侵入性的方式提供对狭小受限空间的前所未有的访问。大自然已被证明是工程系统设计和优化的非凡灵感来源。受细菌和群居昆虫的启发，大量移动微型机器人在未来的医疗保健应用中不可或缺，如人体内微创疾病诊断和治疗、芯片实验室类型微流控设备中的生物技术应用、用于新型人机界面、可编程物质和其他应用的可重构微系统，以及用于监测其环境的移动传感器网络应用。虽然文献中已经提出了许多具有各种运动能力的移动微型机器人，如行走和游泳，但这些微型机器人解决方案存在可扩展性差、缺乏车载感知和工具以及定位能力有限等问题。这项研究计划旨在引入新的制造和控制技术，以创造有用的微型机器人代理，具有在船上的功能，用于操纵微型对象，如微型工厂中的微型部件或微流控芯片中的活细胞。机器人界需要新的方法来驱动和控制小型智能体，以用于偏远地区的高冲击力应用。研究有三个重点领域：通过移动微机器人设计用于有限空间的新型移动微工具；这种工具和系统的多自由度(DOF)驱动；以及微机器人系统的实际应用。所采用的方法仍然需要对磁驱动的基本原理进行新的研究。它将涉及研究多种不同类型的磁性材料对复杂机构和机器人系统的多自由度驱动的相同输入信号的响应。这将需要一种新的方法来制造微型机器人、材料和控制技术。在微观尺度上，这种驱动将被用于制造移动微型机器人的车载工具。一种可移动的微夹持器设计，可集成到在平面或3D环境中精确移动的微型机器人中。这种能力将允许不受限制地携带2D和3D对象，用于微流体、医疗保健或微型工厂中的拾取放置和货物递送应用。这将需要新的制造方法和独特的机构综合来适应微尺度机构面临的独特挑战。这些驱动技术也将被研究用于需要远程驱动的更大厘米级系统，如微型步行机器人。以前的厘米级步行机器人的方法受到了限制，因为在一个小包装中包括微型电池、计算机和船上的致动器。因此，这项研究将允许创造出比以前小得多的行走机器人。

The proposed research program aims to design and control groups of micro-scale robots for biotechnology, micro-manufacturing and medical applications. Such a micro-robotic system is controlled and powered using a magnetic coil system capable of applying magnetic forces and moments remotely to sub-mm micro-fabricated robots. Micro-robot systems promise to provide unprecedented access to small confined spaces in a non-invasive manner due to their small size and capabilities for parallel or distributed operation.Nature has proven to be a remarkable source of inspiration for the design and optimization of engineered systems. Inspired by swarms of bacteria and social insects, large numbers of mobile micro-robots are indispensable for future health-care applications for minimally invasive disease diagnosis and treatment inside the human body, biotechnology applications inside lab-on-a-chip type of microfluidic devices, reconfigurable micro-systems for novel human-machine interfaces, programmable matter and other applications, and mobile sensor network applications for monitoring their environment. While many mobile micro-robots with various locomotion capabilities such as walking and swimming have been proposed in the literature for some of these potential applications, these micro-robot solutions suffer from lack of scalability, lack of on-board sensing and tools, and limited localization capability. This research program aims to introduce new fabrication and control techniques to create useful micro-scale robotic agents with on-board functionality for manipulating micro-scale objects such as micro-parts in a micro-factory or living cells in a microfluidic chip. The robotics community is in need of new approaches to power and control of small-scale agents for high-impact applications in remote areas.The research has three focus areas: The design of novel mobile micro-tools for use in confined spaces by a mobile microrobot; multi-degree of freedom (DOF) actuation of such tools and systems; and use of microrobot systems for practical applications. The approach used wtill require new research in the fundamentals of magnetic actuation. It will involve investigating the responses of multiple different types of magnetic materials to the same input signals for multi-DOF actuation of complex mechanisms and robotic systems. This will require a new approach to micro-robot fabrication, materials and controls techniques.At the micro-scale, such actuation will be used to create on-board tools for mobile microrobots. A mobile micro-gripper design which can be integrated into microrobots which move precisely in planar or 3D environments. Such a capability will allow for the unrestrained carrying of objects in 2D and 3D for pick-and-place and cargo delivery applications in microfluidics, healthcare or microfactories. This will require new fabrication methods and unique mechanism synthesis to accommodate the unique challenges present for micro-scale mechanisms.These actuation techniques will also be researched for use in larger centimeter-scale systems which require remote actuation such as miniature walking robots. Previous approaches to centimeter-scale walking robots have been limited by the inclusion of miniature batteries, computers and actuators on-board in a small package. Thus, this research will allow for the creation of walking robots much smaller than those created before.