Untethered Magnetic Micromanipulation

2015

Book Chapter

pi

This chapter discusses the methods and state of the art in microscale manipulation in remote environments using untethered microrobotic devices. It focuses on manipulation at the size scale of tens to hundreds of microns, where small size leads to a dominance of microscale physical effects and challenges in fabrication and actuation. To motivate the challenges of operating at this size scale, the chapter includes coverage of the physical forces relevant to microrobot motion and manipulation below the millimeter-size scale. It then introduces the actuation methods commonly used in untethered manipulation schemes, with particular focus on magnetic actuation due to its wide use in the field. The chapter divides these manipulation techniques into two types: contact manipulation, which relies on direct pushing or grasping of objects for motion, and noncontact manipulation, which relies indirectly on induced fluid flow from the microrobot motion to move objects without any direct contact.

@inbook{diller2015untethered,
  title = {Untethered Magnetic Micromanipulation},
  author = {Diller, Eric and Sitti, Metin},
  journal = {Micro-and Nanomanipulation Tools},
  volume = {13},
  chapter = {10},
  publisher = {Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA},
  month = nov,
  year = {2015},
  doi = {10.1002/9783527690237.ch10},
  month_numeric = {11}
}