A bio-syncretic micro-swimmer assisted by magnetism

Abstract

Control and actuation are the most important factors that determine the performance of traditional electromechanical robots. Bio-syncretic actuators are a potential trend for the next generation of robots to overcome the challenges in the control and actuation faced by the traditional robots and many novel bio-syncretic actuators have been reported with various biological entities. However, none of these works considers the movement control of such bio-syncretic robots. In this paper, we propose a new actuation approach strategy to assist bio-actuation with remote magnetic field, and present a dolphin-shaped micro-swimmer. Cardiomyocytes are used for bio-actuation. The mathematical model for the micro-swimmer is developed and is validated by comparing the experimental result and simulation result based on the properties of beating cells measured by SICM and AFM. This work is fundamental to the development of bio-syncretic robots. © 2015 IEEE.