A novel two-dimensional locomotion scheme of a micro-robot with only a uniform magnetic field

This paper presents a novel motion control method of a micro-robot for biomedical applications. The proposed micro-robot is composed of a permanent magnet with oblique magnetization, and the electromagnetic actuation (EMA) system consists of only two pairs of Helmholtz coils arranged at a right angle on a horizontal plane. While conventional systems generally use the magnetic field gradient for the propulsion, the proposed system uses only a uniform magnetic field. By virtue of these strategies, we can make the system smaller and reduce the power consumption compared to the pre-existing EMA systems. To verify the feasibility of the proposed system, basic experiments and trajectory tracking were performed under different environments.