Steering micro-robotic swarm by dynamic actuating fields
Qianwen Chao, Jiangfan Yu, Chengkai Dai, Tiantian Xu, Li Zhang, Charlie C. L. Wang, Xiaogang Jin
Abstract
We present a general solution for steering microrobotic swarm by dynamic actuating fields. In our approach, the motion of micro-robots is controlled by changing the actuating direction of a field applied to them. The time-series sequence of actuating field's directions can be computed automatically. Given a target position in the domain of swarm, a governing field is first constructed to provide optimal moving directions at every points. Following these directions, a robot can be driven to the target efficiently. However, when working with a crowd of micro-robots, the optimal moving directions on different agents can contradict with each other. To overcome this difficulty, we develop a novel steering algorithm to compute a statistically optimal actuating direction at each time frame. Following a sequence of these actuating directions, a crowd of micro-robots can be transported to the target region effectively. Our steering strategy of swarm has been verified on a platform that generates magnetic fields with unique actuating directions. Experimental tests taken on aggregated magnetic micro-particles are quite encouraging.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2016_steeringmicrorob,
title = {Steering micro-robotic swarm by dynamic actuating fields},
author = {Qianwen Chao and Jiangfan Yu and Chengkai Dai and Tiantian Xu and Li Zhang and Charlie C. L. Wang and Xiaogang Jin},
booktitle = {ICRA 2016},
year = {2016}
}