Simultaneous Multiple-Nanowire Motion Control, Planning, and Manipulation Under Electric Fields in Fluid Suspension

To fully take advantage of the enormous potential of functional nanodevices, it is crucial to automate their manufacture with efficient steering and manipulation of multiple nanowires with controlled orientations to specific spatial locations. In this paper, we present motion planning and control algorithms for simultaneously steering multiple nanowires in liquid suspension. The motion planning and control is designed for a microfluidic device that is actuated by a simple generic set of electrodes. We first present a motion control algorithm to simultaneously steer multiple nanowires along different desired trajectories under controlled electrophoretic forces. A two-stage motion planning algorithm is then presented to generate the desired trajectory for each individual nanowire. Both numerical simulation and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the motion planning and control design using electric fields to simultaneously steer and manipulate multiple nanowires.