Magnetic Actuation of Miniature Robots on Planar Surfaces: Mathematical Modeling and Estimation

Abstract

Magnetic actuation methods in miniature robots are widely used thanks to their wide applications for precise micro-manipulations in inaccessible or hardly accessible environments, including medical and biological operations. The system studied is composed of miniature robots with permanent magnets inside the body and a planar coplanar coils actuator. This paper investigates the mathematical modeling of a robot's movement, taking uncertainties and unmodeled dynamics into account. The crucial parameter is the friction coefficient between the planar actuator and the robot as it moves. An approach has been proposed to estimateit using the Kalman filter principle. Numerical simulations are compared to experiments to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.