Modeling and Testing of a Biomimetic Flagellar Propulsion Method for Microscale Biomedical Swimming Robots

Abstract

Medical applications are among the most impactful areas of microrobotics. The ultimate goal of medical microrobots is to reach currently inaccessible areas of the human body and carry out a host of complex operations such as minimally invasive surgery (MIS), highly localized drug delivery, and screening for diseases at their very early stages. Miniature, safe and energy efficient propulsion systems hold the key to maturing this technology but they pose significant challenges. In this paper, authors propose a new type of propulsion inspired by the motility mechanism of prokaryotic microorganisms. The perfomance of this propulsive mechanism is estimated by modeling the dynamics of the motion. Analyzing key parameters such as linear velocity and efficiency, the optimum design of propulsion mechanism for miniatue robots is demonstrated. In order to validate the theoretical result for flagellar proplusion, a scaled up prototype of the swimming robot is fabricated and characterized in silicone oil using the Buckingham PI theorem for scaling. The proposed propulsion method is for the swimming robots which is intended to swim in low velocity biofluids. Potential target regions to use these robots include eyeball cavity, cerebrospinal fluid and the urinary system.