Simulation and experiments on magnetic microforces for magnetic microrobots applications

Magnetic microrobots have a wide variety of applications in micro/nano-manipulation, micro/nano sensing and biomedical fields. Untethered magnetic microrobots are usually driven by a group of electromagnetic coils. To control the magnetic microrobots trajectory it is of utmost importance to know the magnitude of the magnetic force applied on them. In this paper finite element simulations are proposed to derive the magnetic field produced by an iron core coil. A three dimensional static magnetic analysis is also performed to simulate the magnetic force applied on a magnetic microrobot. The simulation results are validated by experimental measurements. A teslameter is used to measure the magnetic field on the central axis of the coil. A magnetic microrobot (less than 400 × 400 μm²) is fabricated and glued to a force sensor to measure the magnetic force applied on it. The measurement results are in good agreement with the simulation and show the effectiveness of the magnetic simulation.