Parallel Actuation of Nanorod Swarm and Nanoparticle Swarm to Different Targets

Abstract

After years of development, various swarms of robots have been proposed for many complicated tasks, such as forming patterns, cooperative locomotion, and adapting to different environments. However, controlling microrobotic swarms is still a challenging task owing to the lacking of integrated devices on the small-scale agents, and actuation of multiple microrobotic swarms to different targets under the same global input will be even more difficult. In this work, we present a swarm of nickel nanorods and its diverse locomotion velocity compared with Fe3O4 nanoparticle swarms is implemented for actuating the two swarms to different targets under the same customized oscillating magnetic field. The effects of the magnetic anisotropy of agents on the macroscopic swarm behaviour are analysed theoretically. To prove the strategy, the speeds of the two swarms were characterized through experiments, and demonstrations were conducted to show the capability of driving the two swarms to different locations in the same environment. Furthermore, parallel locomotion of the two swarms towards opposite directions was also achieved on a tilted substrate. This work has proved the feasibility of simultaneously actuating two swarms to diverse targets and promoted fundamental understandings of microrobotic swarms.