Uncalibrated Visual Servo Control of Magnetically Actuated Microrobots in a Fluid Environment

Micromachines

Jenelle Armstrong Piepmeier¹  Samara Firebaugh²  Caitlin S. Olsen¹ 

[1] Systems Engineering, United States Naval Academy, 105 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21402, USA; E-Mail:;Electrical and Computer Engineering, United States Naval Academy, 105 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21402, USA; E-Mail:

关键词: microelectromechanical devices;    microrobots;    uncalibrated visual servoing;   

DOI  :  10.3390/mi5040797

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Microrobots have a number of potential applications for micromanipulation and assembly, but also offer challenges in power and control. This paper describes an uncalibrated vision-based control system for magnetically actuated microrobots operating untethered at the interface between two immiscible fluids. The microrobots are 20 μm thick and approximately 100–200 μm in lateral dimension. Several different robot shapes are investigated. The robots and fluid are in a 20 × 20 × 15 mm vial placed at the center of four electromagnets. Pulse width modulation of the electromagnet currents is used to control robot speed and direction. Given a desired position, a controller based on recursive least square estimation drives the microrobot to the goal without a priori knowledge of system parameters such as drag coefficients or intrinsic and extrinsic camera parameters. Results are verified experimentally using a variety of microrobot shapes and system configurations.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.