Actuation of Corkscrew Swimming Motion in Soft-Millirobots at Varying Frequencies
Disciplines
Acoustics, Dynamics, and Controls
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Soft-Millirobots have many applications in the biomedical field which is why they are commonly researched. The objective of this study is to control the locomotion of Soft-Millirobots by using 3D Helmholtz coils to rotate a magnetic field at different frequencies. The Soft-Millirobots used in the study are all roughly 3 mm long, 1 mm wide, and 0.3 mm thick and comprised of a composite polymer combined with ferromagnetic particles for the head and just the composite polymer for the body. The robots are all magnetized along their major axis and then placed into a 30 x 30 x 10 mm clear chamber. There, the millirobots are subjected to a rotating magnetic field oriented in a cone shape at various frequencies and observed over 200 Hz by a high-speed infrared camera. The rotating magnetic fields create three different types of locomotion in the soft robot when tilted at 15 degrees: a rolling motion appears frequencies ranging from 1 to 10 Hz, a transient motion appear at frequencies ranging from 10 to 30 Hz and a corkscrew motion at frequencies ranging from 31 to 50 Hz. As the tilt angle of rotating magnetic field increases, the cone shape becomes shallower and, all three locomotion types begin to occur at lower frequencies. Within the study, we successfully demonstrated the rolling motion caused by the rotation of the robot about its minor axis, and the corkscrew motion caused by the rotation of the robot about its major axis. While simultaneously demonstrating, that the tilt angle of the cone shaped magnetic field plays a crucial role in controlling locomotion of the swimming soft bodied robot.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
SPCEET - Mechanical Engineering
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Dal Hyung Kim
Actuation of Corkscrew Swimming Motion in Soft-Millirobots at Varying Frequencies
Soft-Millirobots have many applications in the biomedical field which is why they are commonly researched. The objective of this study is to control the locomotion of Soft-Millirobots by using 3D Helmholtz coils to rotate a magnetic field at different frequencies. The Soft-Millirobots used in the study are all roughly 3 mm long, 1 mm wide, and 0.3 mm thick and comprised of a composite polymer combined with ferromagnetic particles for the head and just the composite polymer for the body. The robots are all magnetized along their major axis and then placed into a 30 x 30 x 10 mm clear chamber. There, the millirobots are subjected to a rotating magnetic field oriented in a cone shape at various frequencies and observed over 200 Hz by a high-speed infrared camera. The rotating magnetic fields create three different types of locomotion in the soft robot when tilted at 15 degrees: a rolling motion appears frequencies ranging from 1 to 10 Hz, a transient motion appear at frequencies ranging from 10 to 30 Hz and a corkscrew motion at frequencies ranging from 31 to 50 Hz. As the tilt angle of rotating magnetic field increases, the cone shape becomes shallower and, all three locomotion types begin to occur at lower frequencies. Within the study, we successfully demonstrated the rolling motion caused by the rotation of the robot about its minor axis, and the corkscrew motion caused by the rotation of the robot about its major axis. While simultaneously demonstrating, that the tilt angle of the cone shaped magnetic field plays a crucial role in controlling locomotion of the swimming soft bodied robot.