On-Demand Motion Conversion of Magnetic Helical Microrobots Using Chemistry- and Microstructural-Modified Surface Wettability Modulation
Yaozhen Hou, Shanming Bai, Siyi Li, Ruhao Nie, Jiabao Du, Qiang Huang, Huaping Wang
Abstract
Magnetic helical microrobots have been widely applicated in environmental remediation, sensing, targeted medical applications, and so on. However, for locomotion and manipulation in unstructured liquid environments, the capabilities of distinguished motions and on-demand parking/starting over a team of microrobot are essential. Here, we propose a method for achieving on-demand motions conversion of helical microrobots by modulating surface wettability through surface chemical modification and surface microstructural modifications. An obvious difference shows that microrobot after chemical modification exhibit hydrophilicity and microrobot after microstructural modification exhibit hydrophobicity, where the latter possess higher moving step-out frequency and maximum forward velocity compared to the microrobot after surface chemical modification. The step-out frequencies and maximum velocities of the three types of microrobots (chemistry-modified, unmodified, and pimples-modified) are 13 Hz, 16 Hz, 22 Hz, and 385 μm/s, 511 μm/s, 649 μm/s. Furthermore, our method has demonstrated that can be employed to achieve effective on-demand targeted motions and modal conversion in liquid environment. We anticipate that the method can be potentially employed to achieve precise targeted drug delivery and surgery in biomedical applications.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{iros2025_ondemandmotionco,
title = {On-Demand Motion Conversion of Magnetic Helical Microrobots Using Chemistry- and Microstructural-Modified Surface Wettability Modulation},
author = {Yaozhen Hou and Shanming Bai and Siyi Li and Ruhao Nie and Jiabao Du and Qiang Huang and Huaping Wang},
booktitle = {IROS 2025},
year = {2025}
}