Initial Design of a Bacterial Actuated Microrobot for Operations in an Aqueous Medium

Abstract

The initial design of a 500 micromx200 microm untethered microrobot for future operations in an aqueous medium is briefly described. Electrical energy requirement is minimized by exploiting the motility of magnetotactic bacteria embedded in special reservoirs and used to propel the microrobot. An embedded control microcircuit powered through photovoltaic cells is developed to control the swimming directions of the bacteria and hence, the direction of the robot. The work presented is an initial step towards the development of platforms capable of relatively complex tasks being executed by a swarm of such microrobots pre-programmed with various behaviors.