Design and Control of a Magnetic Driven Worm-like Micro-robot

Abstract

This paper presents the design and control of a worm-like soft robot, which is driven by a 3-D Helmholtz coils magnetic system. The whole robot adopts soft materials and is manufactured by Stereo Lithography Apparatus technology. NdFeB cylindrical magnets with opposite magnetization directions are glued to the front and rear of the robot, and the different friction forces on the head and tail of the robot are used to realize the worm-like gait movement. Based on the principle of magnetic field superposition and the magnetic dipole model, the robot can be positioned in real time with dual magnetic targets, with an average positioning error of 2.30mm, and the robot's automatic navigation movement is realized through closed-loop feedback.