Toward fluidic microrobots using electrowetting

Author

Schaler, Ethan ; Tellers, Mary ; Gerratt, Aaron ; Penskiy, Ivan ; Bergbreiter, Sarah

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

14-18 May 2012

Firstpage

3461

Lastpage

3466

Abstract

This paper describes the performance of a fluidic microrobot using Electrowetting on Dielectric (EWOD). A system to control the fluidic microrobot was designed, constructed and deployed in the NIST Mobile Microrobotics Challenge at ICRA 2011. The microrobots (0.1 M KCl and 550 μm diameter) demonstrated the ability to perform controlled maneuvers in 2-D while transporting hydrophilic objects. The EWOD system is composed of a DIP-mounted die produced via standard microfabrication techniques and containing the control electrodes / competition arena, and a transparent ITO cover slip for grounding. Key advantages of this platform include a scalable design for batch EWOD system fabrication, potential simultaneous control of multiple microrobots, and an easily portable, compact system design.

Keywords

control system synthesis; dielectric materials; electronics packaging; hydrophilicity; microelectrodes; microfabrication; microfluidics; microrobots; mobile robots; multi-robot systems; wetting; DIP-mounted die; ICRA; NIST mobile microrobotics challenge; batch EWOD system fabrication; competition arena; electrode control; electrowetting on dielectric; fluidic microrobot design; hydrophilic object transportation; maneuver control; microfabrication techniques; multirobot systems; portable-compact system design; transparent ITO cover slip; Dielectrics; Electrodes; Fabrication; Indium tin oxide; Microassembly; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2012 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Saint Paul, MN

ISSN

1050-4729

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1403-9

Electronic_ISBN

1050-4729

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICRA.2012.6225275

Filename

6225275