Dynamics and Control of a Novel Microrobot with High Maneuverability

Abstract

SUMMARY In this study, we introduce a novel three-dimensional micro-scale robot capable of swimming in low Reynolds number. The proposed robot consists of three rotating disks linked via three perpendicular adjustable rods, actuated by three rotary and three linear motors, respectively. The robot mechanism has an important property which makes it superior to the previously designed micro swimmers. In fact, our goal is designing a micro swimmer which its controllability matrix has full rank and hence it will be capable to perform any desired maneuver in space. After introducing the mechanism and derivation of the dynamical equations of motion, we propose a control method to steer the robot to the desired position and orientation in the presence of external disturbances in the low Reynolds number flow. Simulation results confirm the successful performance of the proposed mechanism and employed control method demonstrating high maneuverability of microrobot.