Design, Modelling and Control of a Manoeuvrable Swimming Micro-Robot

Abstract

Biomedical application of swimming microrobots such as controlled drug delivery, microsurgery and diseases monitoring have made the researches conspicuous in MEMS technology. In this paper, inspired by the flagellar motion of microorganisms (i.e. bacteria) in nature, a 3-DOF swimming microrobot is developed and analyzed. The body of the microrobot is driven by use of three prokaryotic flagella. The rotation of each flagellum in the fluid media leads to propulsion in the microrobot. At first, attention is focused on the dynamic modeling of the microrobot's motion and then, a suitable controller is designed for its tracking performance. We use resistive-force theory to derive the propulsion force generated by the flagella. Feedback linearization method is used to control the motion of the swimming microrobot for tracking performance. It is seen that, by applying three flagella, the microrobot enables to do 3-D maneuvers. The results show that the tracking performance is guaranteed by use of the designed controller and the microrobot can be controlled to do desired maneuvers and follow the desired trajectory.