Papers
3
Total Citations
54
H-Index
3
About
Yan Ou is a pioneer in the emerging field of bio-hybrid microrobotics, specializing in the motion control of living microorganisms for use as microscopic robots. His research centers on harnessing the natural motility of *Tetrahymena pyriformis*—a single-celled ciliate—by endowing it with artificial magnetotaxis, effectively transforming these cells into steerable, self-propelled biological microrobots. Ou’s major contributions lie in developing sophisticated control algorithms to overcome the fundamental challenge of coordinating many independent biological agents with a single, uniform magnetic field. His 2013 paper on exploiting phase inhomogeneity for feedback control (30 citations) established a foundational method for position control of multiple cells. He further advanced the field by implementing Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms, enabling simultaneous, obstacle-avoiding navigation of multiple *T. pyriformis* cells toward distinct targets. This work, detailed in his 2015 paper (9 citations), represents a significant step toward practical applications in targeted drug delivery, micro-assembly, and environmental sensing, demonstrating that large swarms of living microrobots can be precisely orchestrated with elegant, unified control inputs.
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