Achievement

Two IGERT students (Art Mahoney, Cody Sarrazin) collaborated on a project to enable intuitive teleoperation of magnetic helical microrobots, which mimic the propulsion of bacteria. The students developed an algorithm that performs gravity compensation for the swimmers, such that the human operator can simply specify a desired Cartesian velocity of the microrobot, and the pitch and rotation speed of the microrobot are chosen automatically to create the desired velocity. The students developed the experimental field-generation hardware and controllers as well. The project resulted in a journal publication. Such an algorithm could enable next-generation micromanipulation systems for use under an optical microscope, as well as medical microrobots for targeted drug delivery and material removal.